Game Title: Mary Skelter ~ Nightmares
Developer: Compile Heart / Idea Factory International
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Download: 2.9 GB
Availability: Retail / Digital Download
PSTV Support: Yes

I’ve had a strange relationship with the First-Person Dungeon RPG genre, or commonly referred to a DRPGs. Along with Tactical RPGs, I like them, but I can’t get into them all the time, like I can with Action RPGs and traditional turn-based RPGs. Because of this, I have not played and reviewed a lot of the DRPGs available on the PS Vita, like the New Tokyo Legacy games, despite reviewing others well, like Demon Gaze and Death under the Labyrinth’s localization.

There has been one DRPG I have actually been looking forward to from Idea Factory International. And that is Mary Skelter, which had a very unique look and appeal with its darker setting and art style. It is finally time to jot down my thoughts for you all. Here is my PS Vita and PSTV review of Mary Skelter: Nightmares!

Story

Mary Skelter takes place in an undisclosed city of Japan after it is hit by a disaster. After hit by a disaster, the citizens are left stranded in a deformed city controlled by a giant, living tower known as “The Jail” and Marchens, monsters formed from fallen humans. With little ability to fight off the monsters, citizens are left running for their lives or captured and tortured until death.

The plot surrounds two survivors of the Marchens’ torture. Jack and Alice, whome are childhood friends and carry within themselves special blood that enables them to fight back against the monsters. After being recruited by a group of “Blood Maidens” who also share the ability to fight back, Jack and Alice assist them in trying to take out the tower so everyone can escape from their prison.

The story of Mary Skelter is unique because it is so different from all of the other DRPGs I have played. MeiQ was about Maidens fighting off a recurring evil threat, while Demon Gaze was about a man recruiting demons in a fantasy world. Mary Skelter takes the post-apocalypse scenario of only a single city falling to these strange monsters and the uniqueness of basing each Heroine off of famous folklore women, like Princess Kaguya and Thumbelina, really helps Mary Skelter stand out.

Gameplay

The gameplay of DRPGs rarely moves that far from the formula, no matter which game you play, and Mary Skelter maintains that trend. At its core, the game is a first-person dungeon crawler where you go from your base of operations to dungeons, explore the dungeons, go back, and repeat the process. While it does have its own unique features, the basic DRPG formula is here, like many others of the genre.

The main point of Mary Skelter is to clear dungeons, though the dungeons of the game are all intertwined. As you explore the City Streets dungeon, you will find exits to other dungeons, creating the feeling that it is one giant world that you can explore in first-person rather than individual stages. Think the kind of progression from games like Mega Man ZX or Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, but with warp points in each dungeon to prevent needless backtracking.

Actual dungeon exploration is pretty simple. You move in a grid-like manner as you explore each square of the dungeon, fighting enemies while finding hints, opening locked doors, and eventually making your way to the next story segment so you can recruit more party members, take down bosses, and see more of the game’s story.

Dungeon Exploration is further expanded with character abilities and Dungeon Mood Swings. Each recruitable character has a special ability used for clearing away new paths for you to explore. These are both required, but there are also a lot of paths that are optional and only available until you gain new party members in later dungeons. There is also Dungeon Mood Swings, where the dungeon will go through emotional shifts as you explore it, giving you various positive or negative effects. Using emotion points in the dungeons can help you manipulate these, especially if you are about to go into a boss fight.

As far as characters go, all playable characters are story-based and recruited, but maintain a significant amount of customizability and depth to them. Every character comes with their own class, which has its own sets of skills, be it inflicting status ailments, buffing and healing, or powerful elemental attacks. As they grow, however, you can change their jobs to other classes in case you don’t want Red Riding Hood to be your healer or if you want Thumbelina to go from your Spellcaster to your Archer.

Combat is a bit unique as well. The way the story goes, all Blood Maidens are slowly corrupted as they use their powers and can enter elevated Berserker states called Massacre Mode where they become significantly stronger and Blood Skelter where they become unaware of who is friend or foe, attacking enemies and allies at will. Just as much strategy goes into managing corruption as fighting off enemies. You will have to use the main character’s abilities to watch and lower corruption so Blood Skelter does not come up and wipe out your party.

Before going out of this section, I’ll mention the fanservice mini-game that game has. Lowering Corruption in dungeons will eventually unlock a mini-game that resembles the Torture Mini-Game from the Criminal Girls series. It shows the girls in a sexual pose while you “rub” blood on them to free them of corruption. These fanservice sections pop in once per character and really felt like they weren’t needed. The game’s plot and story scenes really don’t set a tone that would call for NSFW material, so it really felt like this feature was just put in there so the game would have fanservice for the sake of having fanservice.

All of these elements slowly grow across the game’s journey, and speaking of that journey we should talk about the game’s length. The game does progress quickly, but the dungeons get longer the further along you go. If you play on the Easy or Normal difficulties, the game can easily last 30-40 hours, counting story progression and inevitable grinding you do for difficulty spikes.

Controls

Controlling the game is not diffiult, and they make it easy for you. Before going into anything else, the game has a great way of accessing control help. If you stop doing button inputs for a few seconds, you get a prompt at the top corner that has you hit Select to view controls. This is a great feature, especially since some games of this type have no real tutorial or controls explanation.

As far as controls go, you use the D-Pad or the Left Analog Stick to move in menus and to navigate dungeons. L and R are used for strafing (L1 and R1 on the PlayStation TV). And then the face buttons. X is used for interacting with objects while Circle lets you use a field ability. Triangle pulls up the customization menu, and Square pulls up the map for quick-travel.

As I said before, the game is simple to learn and if you forget, that Select Prompt for not doing any input for a few seconds really helps.

Presentation

Visually, DRPGs are mostly 2D in nature, with cutscenes having VN properties and enemies in dungeons having hand-drawn sprites. Compile Heart has been known to switch this formula up, and they do in this game as well.

Graphically, the environments are more 3D and all of the battle effects and monster sprites are in 3D. These models look pretty decent, with very little to no jagged edges anywhere, and the battle animations look very sharp from the fire spell explosions to the explosions of blood when an enemy is defeated.

Performance I have no real issue with. Load Times are quick, fps stays steady throughout the entire game, and the optimization on both the Vita and PSTV runs well.

Ever since it first came out and was discovered, the Nintendo Switch has been home to a lot of different ways to play and that goes especially apparent when it comes to controls. You can play with the Joy Cons attached to the system, disconnected on a grip, one in each hand, and even co op with only a single Joy Con controller.

However, ever since the Joy Cons came out with arrow buttons instead of a proper D-Pad, fans have wanted a proper controller to play in Console/TV Mode. Not long after, they got a pricey option in the form of the Pro Controller. It was an Xbox-like controller with full sized buttons, a long battery life, and a nice big $70 price tag.

I will admit that the price tag is the reason it has taken me so long to actually go out and buy one, but I have one. Here is my Hardware Review of the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller!

Design

By design, the Pro Controller is like a heavier Xbox One controller. He shape and the feel while it is in your hands really feels like you are about to play on your Xbox One because the shape is remarkably similar. But less about that, and let us talk about the design itself.

Outside of the outer shape, you have all of your standard placements on the front of the controller. The left side has the Left Analog and the D-Pad, and the right hand side has the face buttons ABXY and the Right Analog Stick. The main difference is the middle.

The middle has 4 buttons in total. Between the Left Stick and the face buttons are the Screenshot Button and Home Button. Above them and slightly out more are the – and + buttons, or as other gamers would say, the Select and Start buttons.

Outside of that, you have your 4 triggers on the top, which are very thick and wide to give you lots of space for your fingers to find a space. There is also a USB-C port on the top for charging, Then the bottom only really has a charge light so you know when you need to charge,

It is not an overly complex design and it matches Xbox Gamers’ preferences pretty well, though the Pro Controller is a bit heavier than an Xbox One Controller.

Performance

As far as performance goes, there are ups and downs. Well, many ups and one awkward down, really. The feel of the controller really feels like a console controller should. As I said above, it is a bit heavier than a PS4 or XB1 controller, but it fits in your hands well and feels really comfy.

The buttons, themselves, are a big different from other controllers but also similar. The Analog Sticks feels very much like other console analogs, from the movement to the clicking. The buttons feel a little different, though. On the Xbox controller, the face buttons are rounded and even the edge the finger touches is rounded and curved. The Pro Controller’s face buttons are flat on top, providing a larger, smoother surface for the fingers to rest on and grip as you hit various buttons. It feels a little different, but works well.

One of the biggest interface appeals of the Pro Controller is the fact that it doesn’t have those arrow buttons, but a proper D-Pad. The buttons on the D-Pad feel pretty much, but there is a fatal flaw here that a lot of people who play side-scrolling games will have a major problem with. Many of the Pro Controller’s out on the market today have glitching with the D-Pad and my Pro Controller has the same issue. Many times when selecting one input on the D-Pad, the game will activate it and another. For example, I could hit the Right Button on the Home Screen and instead of just going to the right, it will go to the right and up at the same time and I will have to fight with the controller to get it to do what I want.

This is a major problem when playing side-scrolling games because up and right do two different things. The same goes for fighting games where right moves to the right and Up makes you jump. It is an issue I hope they patch out at some point, but is still very much a large problem. I had to use my Joy Cons to play Sonic Mania on my Switch in Docked Mode because of that.

Granted, this may not be a problem forever. Nintendo does have an option in Settings to be able to update the software in the controllers, so they may fix this down the road. For the moment, however, it is still an issue.

My other issue is the placement of the middle buttons. Because there is a very small amount of space between the – and Screenshot buttons (and + and Home buttons), taking screenshots can become a hassle without adjustments. Almost every time I take screenshots with the Pro Controller, I accidentally hit the – button by mistake, so instead of getting a great shot, I open up a menu. This is a minor problem for me, but still an annoyance as I take a lot of screenshots for reviews.

The final thing I will talk about is the Battery Life. The new generation controllers are heavily criticized because the battery life is so meager compared to last gen. My PS4 controller barely lasts a single day while my PS3 controllers last several. The Pro Controller helps alleviate those concerns. Once fully charged, I only have to plug it in once or twice a week with playing my Switch every day. The battery life is nothing less than stellar and is one of the biggest reasons many people use to justify their purchase.

Game Title: Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 for Nintendo Switch
Developer: Dimps, Bandai Namco
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Download: 6.4 GB (8.7 GB total with DLC)
Availability: Retail / Digital (Japan, NA, EU)
Battery Life: 2.5 – 3.5 hours

Anime games and RPGs are in short supply on the Nintendo Switch, especially in the English world. Sure, we have Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star, and we have one or two games on the way, but the anime fan doesn’t have a whole lot to buy and play right now.

This month changes that for fans of Dragon Ball. A couple weeks ago, a Dragon Ball RPG/Fighting Hybrid game that was a hit on PS4 and Xbox One came to the Switch in Japan, full with English dub and access to the North American and European online servers.

Bringing current-gen Dragon Ball to Nintendo and on the go, here is my review of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

With Dragon Ball Z games easily getting close to over 100 video games since the dawn of gaming, there really is so much you can do with a storyline over and over again.

With that in mind, the Xenoverse series has been about taking the timeline and changing it. Like in Xenoverse 1, Xenoverse 2 revolves around a member of the Time Patrol, a special force whose task is to fix alterations made to the timeline to ensure no one changes the flow of time for the worse.

As a Time Patroller, you are sent through the history of Dragon Ball Z as the movie villains are running rampant and altering all eras, from the Saiyan Saga to the Kid Buu Saga. This makes it very similar in plot to the first game, but it is worth noting that not only do early buyers get the storylines from BOTH games on Switch, but each game has certain eras only available to them.

This makes the story a little different from the initial timeline of the series, but still heavily relies on having previous knowledge of the series. So, if you haven’t watched or read the DBZ anime or manga, you will be very confused about everything about the game’s story mode.

Gameplay

Unlike typical Dragon Ball games, which are fighting games to the core, the Xenoverse games take on a more RPG-style approach. With a hub world, leveling and stat growth system, custom character creation, quests, and online co-op, it is much more of an MMO-like RPG game, the fighting mechanics secluded to combat alone. By definition, I call it an Action RPG and 3D Fighting Game hybrid.

Before we go into how the game works, let’s talk about this new version of the game on the Switch. Basically, there are 2 things we need to go over.

1) The DLC is not packed-in on the Switch. It still must be bought, from the Season Pass to the individual story arcs and character packs from Dragon Ball Super.

Do note that the DLC on Switch in Japan is cheaper than the DLC in North America on PS4, but it still must be bought.
2) The entire Dragon Ball Xenoverse 1 Story Campaign is included in both the retail and digital versions of this game.

However, in Japan, it was stated to be available to “early buyers” so it is unknown how long it will remain available if you do not buy the game right away.

While this game does have a roster of almost 100 playable characters, you do not play around them. When you boot up the game,you create a custom character to use for the Story Mode across 5 races from the Dragon Ball franchise and they can be customized from appearance to skills and equipment. There are also a lot of options that allow you to recreate your favorite characters from the show with your custom character, from Dragon Ball/Z characters like Videl and Master Roshi to Dragon Ball Super characters like Caulifla and Frost.

Progress in the game really depends on what you want to do. Once you do a couple of the tutorial missions, you get a lot of options. You can do Story Missions from the Time Nest, Side Quests and Battles from the hub, plus you have even more Side Quests from various other areas, such as Frieza Force missions, training with Mentors to learn new skills, or random side-quests from NPCs around the hub.

This sounds like a lot, but it isn’t all thrown on you at once. Some areas need items unlocked later in the story to access, while other areas will incrementally unlock as you complete the story campaign. This goes for the Xenoverse 1 campaign, too. Segments of the first game’s story will unlock as you finish segments of Xenoverse 2’s story campaign. So, if you were hoping to play through the first game and then the second game’s campaign, you cannot do that.

So. how do you play the game? Whether you’re in a Story Mission, side quest, parallel quest, or PvP battle, you spawn in huge 3D arenas that you can freely walk, run, swim, and fly through to explore. These arenas will have different objectives dependent on the mission, but you’ll mostly be fighting enemy characters with a light attack/heavy attack combo system found in many fighting games and action games alike. Combat is all about flying through the air, performing flashy combos, and launching energy waves and physical attack combinations.

Upon the completion of a mission, you will gain currency to purchase clothing and equipment and experience points towards leveling up. Level Ups are where the RPG mechanics come in. Each level you get awards you stat points that can freely be allocated to different stats, like Health, Stamina, Energy Attacks, Basic Attacks, etc.

Leveling is also the biggest piece of the game, as the Story Mode has difficulty spikes, especially towards the end. It is highly advised that you always do Parallel Quests and Side-Quests while progressing the Story Mode, or you will get to points where you will have to go to the side and grind for levels to be able to properly

However, if you think that will be enough to get you through everything, you are mistaken. I just barely managed to clear XV2’s Final Boss without doing extra grinding, but also doing pretty much every side quest that came up, outside of the DLC missions. But even then, I had to stop and grind quite a bit to tackle the DLC Story Arcs and even the later parts of the Xenoverse 1 campaign. If you plan on doing everything the game has to offer, expect to get close to, or match the game’s Level Cap of 80 (unlockable up to 99).

That is the main thing that will turn people away from the game, or at least the game’s later portions. I never finished Xenoverse 1 on PS4 because of how much grinding I had to do for it. Xenoverse 2’s story is easier in that regard, but as I just said, doing only the Story Mode missions will not get you enough to clear everything. You will need to dip into Quests eventually, be it offline or using the Online Co-Op feature.

Given all the game has to offer, it’s going to be a very long experience. Around the time when I’d cleared both Story Campaigns and was starting to work on the DLC Story Arcs from Dragon Ball Super, I had logged nearly 60 hours in the game. For a game that most people consider to be a fighting game, that’s a lot of content.

Controls

Controlling the game isn’t really that hard to do. You can move around with the Left Analog Stick and move the camera with the Right Analog Stick. The four triggers are all used. ZL and ZR are used for Flying and Super Attack shortcuts, while L and R are used for Guarding and Lock-Ons.

The Arrow Buttons/D-Pad have a variety of functions as well. The Up and Down buttons will open up little chat dialogues you can send to your Teammates during missions, while Left and Right will open the Scouter to scan the area and the Item List so you can heal up in the middle of a fight.

Finally, the face buttons. Things are pretty easy here. Y is used for light attacks and X for heavy attacks. A fires off Ki/Energy Blasts and B lets you jump and hover.

While I would not call the Xenoverse control scheme “simple”, the game explains it to you quite well in all of the tutorial missions.

Presentation

Graphically, Xenoverse 2 on Switch looks on-par with the PS4/Xbox One versions in some areas, but not others. When the camera is close to the character models, it looks near-perfect, but away and you can see jagged edges here and there. It’s nothing super-major, but there is a little difference between the two versions.

Audio, unfortunately, has the same issue as it does on the other consoles. During cinematic cutscenes in Story Mode, the dubbing is significantly un-synched from the movements on the character models. You might see Goku’s mouth start moving a full 2 seconds before the dub starts mentioning his line.

This wouldn’t be as big of a deal, but if you watch the Xenoverse 1 story missions, there are no timing problems. And since a lot of the scenes are similar here, why is Xenoverse 2’s voice data off? Granted, this isn’t a Switch problem as the PS4/X1 versions also have this issue as I’ve seen from YT videos. But it’s a bit of an annoyance, especially if you’re watching these scenes like you would an anime series.

Performance-wise, things are great. The Hub World and the normal Missions run a smooth 30 fps, while 1 on 1 battles run a solid 60 fps. The game twitches every so often in menus, but it otherwise plays wonderfully in Docked and Handheld Modes.

Battery Life

I was expecting Battery Life to be horrible, given the high graphical nature of the game as well as the online features. But, here’s what I got from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 26 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 33 minutes
Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 08 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 22 minutes

This isn’t bad. 2.5 to 3.5 hours isn’t super-awful, but not super-great either. It’s more than I expected, though, so I’m happy with the results.

Game Title: Monster Hunter Stories
Developer: Marvelous, Capcom
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Game Type: 3DS
Download: 14,733 Blocks
Availability: Retail | Digital

I love the Hunting RPG / Hunting Action genre. If you give me a game like Toukiden 2 or Ragnarok Odyssey, I will be entertained for hours upon hours on end. However, there is one franchise in the genre that I just cannot get into, that I just cannot stand the sluggish gameplay of: Monster Hunter.

Monster Hunter is one of the most popular Hunting franchises, and one big reason I do not enjoy it because there is no story or plot for what you are doing. It is solely gameplay and I might be able to take the slow gameplay if there was a good story behind it.

Thanks to a recent spin-off on the Nintendo 3DS, the series now has a plot. Here is my review of Monster Hunter Stories!

Story

The world of Monster Hunter is filled with large animals that are considered dangerous and malicious monsters and, while many towns and territories around the world spend their lives hunting down and killing these monsters, there is a small village that does not.

The plot of Stories revolves around a hidden village of “Riders”, humans and Felynes who befriend and co-exist with Monsters rather than fighting and killing them. You take on the role of a newly-appointed Rider as a mysterious dark magic known as “The Black Blight” begins poisoning the nearby area and corrupts the animals, turning them feral and attacking people at will.

The story of Stories is a very interesting story and an interesting way of Capcom setting up a plot for the Monster Hunter series. It does have that JRPG feel and works well.

Gameplay

As opposed to the main series that are Action games, Stories is a turn-based monster-collecting RPG. Imagine Monster Hunter and World of Final Fantasy crossing, or a Monster Hunter x Pokemon type game. You will be traveling with monster companions, collecting new ones, and fighting in turn-based combat.

The main premise of progression is pushed forward through story events that point you towards a new objective point or dungeon on the World Map. In this regard, you will constantly be traveling between new areas and back to the village which serves as a base or hub, filled with your home, shops, and other facilities.

Outside of the village is all exploration and combat. The task of finding materials and crafting weapons and items returns here. There are many items that must be crafted from materials, be it for a mission or to be used. There are also a lot of locked areas, unlocked when you gain more companion monsters that can traverse those types of terrain.

Combat is simple turn-based combat. Your party and the enemy party take turns attacking one another until one side falls. Pretty simple, almost Final Fantasy feel going on here. There is also a weakness system here, with three different elements of attacks and your main strategy is to figure out what the enemy is weak to and use that on them for higher amounts of damage and less damage received.

The downside is that there feels like there is very little depth to combat. You can only control your own character and your monster companion is controlled randomly by the AI. Really, combat is just spamming attacks and items until the battle is over with occasionally doing the Mounting feature to mount your monster to do higher damage.

Speaking of companions, a lot of your extra time will be spent recruiting new party members. Littered across the World Map are Monster Dens, optional dungeons that have Eggs you can loot to hatch new companions.

The beauty of the recruiting system is that there is no single monster that cannot gain high stats towards the end of the game. So, whether your favorite monster is one of the smaller, more common enemies or among the vicious Rathalos, you are able to gather your favorite and take them all the way to the end.

The only thing I do not like about the monster party system is the restrictive party size. You are only allowed to have one monster in battle at once. Even when you mount your monster and a battle slot opens up, you can still only have a single companion with you. This causes a lot of indecision with me from all the monsters I could choose from, but I was only allowed one. Versus games like World of Final Fantasy that allowed for 3-6 party members out at once.

Now, this flow of progression doesn’t change a lot over the course of the game, and it’s a nice, lengthy ride. The storyline of the game should push you through around 35-40 hours of gameplay, and there’s much more to be done with higher ranks, extra dungeons, and online PvP modes where you can fight against enemy parties.

Controls

Since this is a different kind of Monster Hunter game, it would stand to reason the controls cheme would be a bit different. So, here’s how Monster Hunter Stories controls.

Moving around is simple. You move with the Circle Pad and the camera can be moved either by hitting the L and R buttons or with the C Stick on the New 2DS/New 3DS. The ZL and ZR buttons are used as well for activating Story Hints and Party Management, which are otherwise used via the touch screen.

The rest of the controls are with the face buttons. The Y button summons your Monster in the field and allows you to mount them for faster travel and special maneuverability. It also is used for Mount Attacks in combat. X is used for pulling up the customization menu. A is used for interacting with menus and harvest points. Finally, B is used for stealth elements in the field, like crouching and sneaking.

It’s not too hard to really get around. And it certainly is a tad different from what MH fans are used to for controls.

Presentation

Visually, the game looks really cutesy and also kind of mirrors the type of feel World of Final Fantasy had initially gone for. Everything is Chibi-fied where everything is a Chibi. NPCs. Your Character. Even monsters are smaller Chibi forms of their bigger and scarier versions from the main Monster Hunter series.

The graphics, themselves, look pretty nice. Now, those ultra-perfect renders on those early screenshots of the game are not the final product. There are definitely some jaggies here and there, but it really looks great for a 3DS game.

Same with audio and performance. No real problems to be seen here. I never saw the fps drop and the load times are pretty short.

Game Title: Drive Girls
Developer: Tamsoft, Aksys Games (Publisher)
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Download: 590 MB
Availability: Retail | Digital
PSTV Support: Yes

Have you ever wondered what Transformers would’ve been like if instead of being giant fighting robots, the cars and vehicles transformed into sword-weilding anime girls? No? Well, you’re going to find out anyways, because this review is about a game that revolves around that very concept!

Recently localized from Aksys Games is a Tamsoft action game that no one expected to ever come to the West. Here is my review of Anime Girl-Car Transformation-friendly PS Vita exclusive, Drive Girls!

Story

The world of Drive Girls is a world where humans, specifically women, are able to utilize equipment called “Carms”, which allow them to transform into vehicles/cars to not only drive down the road, but defend themselves from attack. The main character, Lancier, is one such woman whom transforms into a Mitsubishi Lancer during combat.

The plot of Drive Girls revolves Lancier, as she is tricked into taking an examination to become a member of the “Drive Girls”, a secret military group aiming to eradicate mechanical invaders known as “Bugs” that have infested one of the major islands of their city area. After being taken to the island and involving herself in rescuing some of her new comrades, she tries to embrace the way of the “Drive Girls”, although she was tricked out of joining the Defense Group she had originally wished to enter.

The only thing I can say about the story is that it is bare-bones and contains anime cliché after anime cliché after anime cliché. Every cutscene in the game lacks depth and feels like a collection of anime cliché events. The first episode has her with a “fateful encounter of running into someone” that causes her to take this exam, and the second has a cliché “wants to leave the group but is guilt-tripped into staying”. I love anime cliches, but it feels like that’s all there is to the story mode.

Gameplay

Like many Tamsoft games, Drive Girls is an action game where you control a character and fight off hordes of enemies. Kind of like a Musou game, actually, but on a smaller scale with the stages not being huge fortress-based arenas. There are also some mild racing game mechanics thrown in as well, so Drive Girls is kind of like an Action Driving game.

As far as Game Modes go, you basically have 2 different options. You have Campaign, which is Story mode, and you have Multiplay, which is Local or Online Multiplayer. Both of these are available to you from the get-go, so you don’t have to worry about clearing the Story to gain access to the Online Functionality.

The Story Campaign goes through missions, where you start a mission, get some cutscenes, and then are thrown into combat until the mission ends. It’s the same kind of progression as previous Tamsoft games, like the Senran Kagura VS games. Multiplay is similar, but without the cutscenes. You’re just thrown into combat.

When you go into combat, you’re able to choose a character, each unlockable and based on a specific type of car. As I said in the Story section, the game’s protagonist is based on the Mitsubishi Lancer, but there are a few other characters based on other kinds of vehicles.

The basis of combat is that you’re thrown onto an arena that doubles as a road/race-way littered with enemies. You start out in human form and can fight off enemies with your equipped weapon or by transforming into your Car Form and fight them off by driving over them, spinning out on top of them, using a nitrous boost to plow through enemy groups, etc. You can also jump back into your Human Form any time you wish.

The mixing of these two elements goes together in the form of the race-ways the missions take place in. Enemy groups are often spread apart, requiring you to turn into a car and use racing controls to drive your way towards the next group. The game also helps this by putting in little boost pads you can use for extra speed to not only get there faster, but achieve more damage when driving over enemies while in the middle of that boost.

Now, when you’re actually fighting, it’s kinda like a musou game. All the enemies look almost exactly like the others and you can light and heavy attacks you can combo together to fight them off. There are also Overdrive elements, giving you access to special skills once you fill a gauge, but it’s really a typical musou type of combat. Slash and button-mash until the enemy goes down and go into Car Form for enemies that move around too much for you to keep combos on.

The first mission or two of this aren’t too bad. But the further you get into the game, the more you realize that every single mission looks and feels exactly like every mission you’ve already done. With only a few enemy differences (mostly being Boss enemies), you are fighting the same enemies with the same skills over and over again across the 6-hour Story Campaign. To put it bluntly, it feels repetitive and boring because of a severe lack of environment and enemy variety.

The biggest thing to add variety is all the customization you can do. As you clear missions, you can unlock new car parts in the game’s Shop, so you can beef up not only your car’s performance but add vinyl stickers to the outside of it. Bringing in a very mild car tuning aspect to the game as a replacement for a standard equipment system.

But really, aside from the fact that the game’s story lasts a mere 6 hours (versus the normal 15-20 hours these types of games normally have with their plots), the game just feels like it isn’t done yet. The fact that there’s almost no enemy and arena variety do fit the whole “Game takes place on a single island” deal, but really doesn’t do much to hold your attention.

Controls

Controlling the game isn’t that hard to get a grasp on. The tutorial mission does a decent job of explaining all of that to you, from combat to transforming between your Human and Car forms.

Moving around the stages is done with the Left Analog Stick and moving the camera is done with the Right Analog Stick. The L and R triggers are used for transformations. Holding them both down will allow you to enter the Car Form. While in this form, you can use L and R to brake and accelerate.

Then you have the face buttons. While in Car Form, all of these buttons can be tapped for different attacks or held to go back to Human Form. While in Human Form, X is used for jumping and Circle for dashing. Square and Triangle are used for light and heavy attacks.

While that may sound confusing, it’s really not that hard to get a grip on. And if you ever have any trouble, there’s a Tutorial button at the Mission Select screen to give you a refresher on how everything works.

Presentation

As far as graphics go, I can’t really complain. The game isn’t pushing the Vita to its limits, but it doesn’t look bad, really. The character models are pretty smooth, both for you, Car Forms, and enemies.

With performance, I’d say about the same. Load Times for me have never exceeded 5-6 seconds and the frame-rate stays nice and steady the whole way through. As much as I found flaws in other sections of the game, the presentation does pretty well for itself.

Game Title: Antiquia Lost
Developer: Kemco
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Download: 267 MB
Availability: Digital Download
PSTV Support: Yes

If you’re a mobile gamer, you should know that Kemco has a reputation of late with RPGs. In fact, their reputation is about releasing several RPGs a year and many of those RPGs are not hold in very high esteem. There are gems, of course, and we have been getting some of those gems in the console world. The game Asdivine Hearts, for example, is considered one of their greatest accomplishments and we already got the first of those games on PlayStation platforms.

And with going forward, Kemco’s RPGs are all made in a retro style, so the biggest thing that help each game is having to maintain some form of originality that is special in that game and not the others. The last Kemco RPG I reviewed, Revenant Saga, maintained this with 2D Exploration and 3D Battles.

So, we now have a new Kemco RPG to review, after a bit of a mess with Sony messing up the initial release on PSN. Now that it is fixed, here is my review of Antiquia Lost for the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation TV!

Story

The setting of Antiquia Lost is a world diviided by three separate tribes that clashed in an ancient war. Now with some form of peace forming, the tribes mingle and interact with one another, which is where the story begins.

You play as Bine, a man from a small village whom helps a young girl of another tribe, whom are consisted of slime-like bodies. After losing her mother to Demons, Bine begins escorting her to their nation’s capital to make something of herself, unaware of the disappearances happening across the world that threaten to plunge the three tribes into yet another world-splitting war.

The story I find interesting, but at the same time, not so. The different races and interactions are pretty unique compared to Kemco’s past console games, but the lack of depth with the character development I found a bit lackluster. Things escalated with some characters a bit too quickly to feel natural and some of their character-specific quirks is pushed a little too hard. It’s interesting, but it feels like they just tried too hard with each character’s individuality.

Gameplay

Atiquia Lost is a turn-based RPG set in a retro style that mimicks the SNES-era or, if you are familiar, RPG Maker-style games. So you will be traveling across an overworld, exploring towns and dungeons, and taking part in turn-based battles as you play through the game.

Like previous Kemco RPGs on the Vita, progression is pushed forward by the story. You get story scenes that point you in the direction you are supposed to go for new areas and the next part of the story that will keep you going. It is typcal retro RPG formula. There are side quests to do as well with NPCs in each town, but you mostly follow the path the story sets you on.

So, we have our typical RPG formula, so what sets Antiquia Lost apart from other games? That element is the main Heroine, whom has a non-traditional way of leveling up and increasing her stats and abilities. While the other characters gain Experience from combat, she does not. Instead, you can Feed her gems that are dropped by enemies and eating gems will increase her stats and abilities, each different depending on what kind of gems she eats. This makes the character growth here a bit unique in that you have to remember to feed her or you will get far ahead in the game and everyone will far exceed her stats.

Aside from that, it is very similar to other Kemco RPGs with the side quests, turn-based combat, using skills and MP, etc. Granted, there is another feature that is unique, with certain characters requiring to be in the lead position to get past obstacles like small corridors and boulders, but the game uses these so seldom that you will likely forget the feature is even there. Imagine Pokemon with only one or two boulders for Rock Smash in the entire game or only a single tree to cut to open up new paths.

Now the rest of the game is pretty much all about combat. If you are not familiar, turn-based combat consists of each character taking a turn with an action, like attacking, skills, items, etc. This is all very standard RPG formula, and like previous Kemco games, you have Auto-Battle available for when you just want all of your characters to use physical attacks and do battles for you if you ever have to grind.

Although, outside of the Harder difficulties, you should never have to grind things out. If you play on Easy or Normal, fighting all the battles you come across should be more than plenty to get you through the game. Though getting through the entire game is another thing to mention. Over the course of the story, Antiquia Lost will likely only take around 10 hours to complete.

Controls

The controls for the game are pretty standard. Like their other games, Antiquia Lost is compatible with the PlayStation TV. So there is no need for the PS4 version to have this RPG on the big screen.

Simple controls. You can move around with the D-Pad or the Left Analog Stick and the Right Stick is not used for much of anything. The triggers can be used for auto-healing with your party’s MP pool. And then the face buttons. Triangle pulls up the menu / Auto Battle. X is used for talking to NPCs or confirming menu options. Circle is for canceling menu options.  And Square is used for bringing up the Map.

All in all, pretty simple control scheme.

Presentation

Here is where Antiquia Lost has always hit a few bumps. Even on mobile, the game was not known for being incredibly stable. At least visually, the game looks nice, for the most part. The 2D world looks pretty crisp. There are a few jaggies on enemy renders in battle, but nothing too major.

Performance is where things hiccup. When you go into combat, there are regular times where the game will freeze for a moment before actually acting out an action you pick, whether that is a normal attack or a skill. I have been told it is the same way in the mobile version of the game, but it is still strange to see such a simple type of game have trouble running on current-gen devices, whether it is an iPhone or a PlayStation Vita.

Game Title: The LEGO Ninjago Movie Videogame
Developer: TT Fusion
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Retail | Digital
Battery Life: 2.75 – 3.5 hours
Download: 7.4 GB

Once upon a time, Games based on Movies always meant said games would be considered lackluster, disappointing, and all around not very fun to play. TT Fusion and the LEGO franchise changed that. You take movies like Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and The Avengers and throw them into a huge open-world beat-em-up game and suddenly, movie games are great again.

Then you have the Handheld Lego game problem. Last gen, the 3DS and Vita got stripped-down Lego games. TT Fusion went from Console-like Lego games with missing features to isometric single-player games that the Handheld Lego fanbase hated to Console-like Lego Games that, while still missing features, were closer to their console counterparts and had started to even incorporate the big sandbox arenas in games like LEGO Marvel’s The Avengers.

Now, the Nintendo Switch allows for full console LEGO games on the go, but even that reputation has been damaged with Lego City’s fps problems. So, going in, we are going to look at the new LEGO game for the Nintendo Switch both as how good of a game it is and how well-optimized of a game it is.

Here is my review of The LEGO Ninjago Movie Videogame!

Story

The first thing to know about the movie’s plot is that it is in what is known as the “LEGO Cinematic Universe”. Like the MCU, the Ninjago Movie is in the same continuity as the LEGO Movie and LEGO Batman Movie. Thereforce, it is essentially a reboot of the Ninjago franchise and has no direct ties to the TV Series LEGO Ninjago: Masters of Spinjutsu.

The plot of the movie is around Lego Ninjago City, which is constantly under siege by the villain Garmadon and his army of minions and giant robots, and is constantly repelled by a group of Color-Coordinated Ninjas and their giant mechs until he comes back and tries again, and is repelled again, and the cycle continues. Really, picture it like Power Rangers because the way the whole movie works really gives off a Power Rangers vibe, even more than the TV Series did.

The story, itself, isn’t bad, but it also isn’t great. It’s got some cute comic relief moments, and that Giant Cat from the movie trailers, but is overall a more serious LEGO story than the typical comic-fest. It’s not bad, but it’s definitely not anything like the original LEGO movie.

Gameplay

Like many LEGO games before it, LEGO Ninjago Movie Videogame is a 3D beat-em-up game with puzzle elements thrown into the game. Across the game’s campaign, you’ll be running around 3D environments, fighting enemies as well as platforming and solving light puzzles as you play out several major scenes from the movie.

The big difference here and other LEGO games is the fact that this game takes on the “open-world” idea in a different way. In LEGO Marvel’s Avengers, you had a massive sandbox NYC you could spend hours upon hours just exploring, let alone doing side quests or finding collectibles. This game does have decent-sized hubs, but nowhere near on that level.

The hubs are more like the size of the hubs from the 3DS/PS Vita version of LEGO Batman 3, where you have a decent area to explore, a couple side quests to do here and there, and are mostly there to have portals to the next story level for you to find and enter to continue the plot. Each major area has a hub like this, though only a couple of them are large areas. Others are much smaller.

Actually going through Story Missions is pretty straight-forward. You are either running around a 3D arena or flying in a mech in on-rail-shooting gameplay. While in the 3D arenas, you are sent on a linear path through the areas with objectives, like opening new paths, saving NPCs, or taking on waves of enemies and bosses.

To take on these enemies and bosses, we have the combat, which is the game’s greatest asset. Unlike previous LEGO games, the combat of LEGO Ninjago Movie is much faster-paced and more flashy. There are a lot of different types of skills you learn during the intro and the combat really does deviate from being a typical button-masher. Some enemies guard, requiring you to try different attacks to take them down and all playable characters have different combat styles to adjust to. You also have special QTE attacks that are flashy and unique finishing moves.

The only other unique point is how you gain upgrades. LEGO Ninjago has a skill system that you can unlock as you complete story objectives. Not only will this teach you new abilities, but will enhance previous abilities, like collecting double studs from getting kills from certain techniques, or letting some light techniques break through opponent’s Guard Status.

Now, considering there isn’t a massive amount of side-quests to do, this leads you to think this will be a short game. In fact, I was told that you can 100% the game in under 6 hours. That, however, is not true. Having timed my playthrough of the game, the game should take you around 7-8 hours if you don’t do any side-quests. That’s how long it took me to get through the Epilogue with doing story missions and zero side content. No races. No Side-Quests. No Free Play. Nothing but story progression.

Now, this doesn’t sound bad, but I feel like it is. The fact that it’s 8 hours isn’t bad. The fact that you’re paying $60 for an 8-hour game is. Even across all the side content, you probably won’t be able to spend mjuch more than 10-12 hours on the game, where many previous console LEGO games did cost $60 but easily had a lot more content. LEGO City Undercover, for example, had a 15 hour story campaign and easily near 30-40+ hours of side content. This game does not.

Controls

The controls for the game are pretty standard. The game is compatible with all game modes, but does not support Single Joy-Con play, as I expect from all future LEGO games, at this point.

The control scheme has you moving with the Left Analog Stick and/or D-Pad and moving the camera with the Right Analog Stick. The Triggers are used for swapping characters with the normal triggers and dodging with the ZL/ZR triggers. The final bit is the face buttons. The A button is used for using Spinjutsu for puzzles and B is used for jumping. Square is used for attacks and Triangle for switching party member control.

You can also use the – button to pull up the map and the + button to either pull up the menu or join the game for a 2-player co-op session with a second controller.

Presentation

Visually, the game looks great. All of the graphics and renders are practically flawless in docked and undocked modes. All of the models and everything look just like they do in the movie and even the Cat is somewhat realistic-looking when you see it wandering around the city outside of cutscenes.

What we really need to talk about are performance and glitchiness in the game. First of all, FPS. The LEGO Ninjago Movie Videogame stays at a stable frame-rate for most of the game, but there are a few segments where it drops under 30 fps. In many of these segments, it stays in the mid-20s, but one beach segment I played had it tank way under 20, to the point where it was difficult to play. Only happened really bad once, but it still happened.

Thankfully, doing co-op play did not seem to change the fps. There were a lot of reports about co-op making the fps tank in LEGO City undercover, but it stays stable in this game while using the split-screen multiplayer.

Another thing worth noting is Loading Times. Each time you go to a new major area, you load and load and load. It feels like it takes forever, and it really does take awhile. For each new area, the loading sequence takes around 1 minute to do. The initial loading sequence is also about this long, so be prepared to wait or go do something whenever it loads a new area.

Now, we have some small glitches but one major one, and that is Crashing. For me, the game crashed every time I tried to launch it as long as it was downloaded onto my Micro SD Card (while all other games on the card worked flawlessly). Download the game onto your System Storage and you’ll be good, but still not without the risk. I did have the game crash during a cutscene once early in the game, so it is something to watch out for.

Other small glitches I encountered were in the form of audio sync issues with all cutscenes to one late cutscene not having any voice audio at all. Those are smaller issues, but still issues.

Battery Life

This is a 3D game, so what are we looking at in terms of battery longevity for handheld mode? I had a few expectations from LEGO City Undercover, but here is what I got from 100% to 0%:

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 46 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 50 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 08 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 34 minutes

Another not-great-not-terrible game. You’ll be able to get around 3 hours on average settings, so you can play a fair amount of the game on a single charge.

Game Title: Touhou Kobuto V Burst Battle
Developer: Cubetype, NIS America
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Retail | Digital
Battery Life: 4-5 Hours
Download: 1.0 GB

I’m glad that the Touhou Project is getting more video games in the console world, and in the West. It’s something I’ve really gotten into for several years, ever since I heard U.N. Owen Was Her in an RPG Maker game. The Touhou girls have a very comical and interesting lore, and the more console/handheld games we get, the more unique experiences we get on those consoles and handhelds.

The new Touhou game has released on two handhelds as well as the PS4, and I made sure to pre-order it. Although it is worth noting that the PS Vita version of this game is compatible with the PlayStation TV, that isn’t the version I am reviewing for you today.

So, for all Touhou fans out there, here is my review of Touhou Kobuto V: Burst Battle for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

The plot takes place in Gensokyo, where the Shrine Maiden Reimu receives word of mouth that she has been seen attacking innocents with the Scarlet Mansion’s Vampire, Remilia Scarlet. Worried that this will hurt her reputation and, more importantly, how much money people donate to the Shrine, she heads out and investigates the rumor.

The story of Burst Battle is simple, yet complex at the same time. The base story is set as detailed above, but with each character’s own story scenario, it shows how things move about from each one’s perspective.

The big problem with this game’s story is the problem with pretty much all of the Touhou games’ stories. Touhou Project has a ton of lore that the games take for granted that you already know. When Burst Battle starts, you just kind of get that Reimu is a Shrine Maiden was her own dialogue and her relationships with everyone else mention all kinds of things known in the lore, but is not known to you.

If you are a Touhou fan or have played through Genso Wanderer, nothing to worry about. If you are not, prepare to be thoroughly confused.

Gameplay

Burst Battle is very difficult to define as a genre. The game calls itself a “Bullet Hell Battle Game”, while many Nintendo fans will immediately be reminded of the fighting game, ARMS, after diving into their first battle. I would definitely call it a fighting game at its core, with a little Bullet Hell thrown in with how most characters’ movesets rely on launching projectiles. So, I’d call it an over-the-shoulder fighter with bullet hell elements thrown into the mix.

When you first start up the game, pretty much all game modes are unlocked for you. You’ve got Story Mode for a flurry of fights with story to back it up, Arcade Mode and Score Attack for going through consecutive fights for high scores, and three VS modes for fighting AI or using the local split-screen or Online Multiplayer Modes.

The main feel of unlocking is in the form of Story Mode. The game features 9 playable characters from the Touhou Project, but only Reimu is available from the get-go. To unlock other characters’ Story Scenarios, you must first beat Story mode with Reimu, Marisa, and Remilia. Once those are cleared, you gain a Character Select from the Story Mode menu and can play through as any of the 9 characters.

The main point of this game is the combat, and it is a pretty unique way of doing things. The perspective and movement throughout the arena is very similar to ARMS. The camera stays behind your character and stays locked towards your opponent. The main difference between this game and ARMS is the variety of attack types. You have three attacks and those attacks will do different things whether you’re on the ground, in the air, far from the enemy, or close to the enemy. These attacks can also be combined with the R trigger to be more enhanced and be more effective against different opponents. You also have Ultimate Attacks in the form of Spell Cards that you can unleash once your CHARGE gauge is full.

The main difficulty is finding balance between your moves. Each attack uses a percentage of that move’s battle gauge. You can’t just spam Marisa’s Kamehameha-like beam attack over and over again. The gauge will eventually run out and need to recharge. So, you need to be able to use other moves effectively until you can use that “favorite” attack again.

Now, I really only have 2 problems with this game’s combat. The first is how sluggish it feels. Like ARMS, your movement and even jumping feels very slow and tank-like. This is probably done on purpose for the strategy and feeling of difficulty with dodging certain attacks, but it just feels slugglish to me. Personal preference, obviously, as I was not a fan of ARMs.

The real problem, though, is balancing between all of the characters. The developers really have a severe need to re-balance this game’s characters. When you play through with various characters, it’s clear that some are favored over others. I can jump into a fight with Marisa and use her X attack once and easily knock out 1/3 to over ½ of an enemy’s health gauge with ease while I can jump in with Cirno and have to land several attacks to do the same amount of damage. This is even more apparent when some Ultimate Attacks can 1-hit-KO some characters.

The attacks, themselves, are shown so you need to learn how to dodge them and that’s not terribly hard to do, but the level of power in some really makes the balance feel tipped heavily in favor of specific characters over others.

Now, what about length? This was obviously an issue with ARMS, since it came right out of the gate at $59.99 and had no Story Mode and was basically all gameplay and just working to unlock other ARMS. Burst Battle’s only real sense of unlocking is working to unlock each of the 9 characters’ story scenarios. With each Story Run lasting 5 battles and around 15-30 minutes a piece, that would bring your total playtime to around 3 hours, give or take. That’s not counting the 10th character that is shown in the roster, but is featured in a DLC Pack that has not yet been released.

Now, that’s not very long. While that game is priced lower on all platforms at $29.99 instead of $59.99, 3 hours to unlock everything and have not much left to do but work on high scores and Multiplayer, you still have to look at it and ask yourself if that’s worth it.

Controls

The controls for the game are pretty simple, though how you learn the controls is not simple.

But first of all, let’s detail the controls, themselves. The Left Analog Stick and the Arrow Buttons / D-Pad are used for moving around and directing your attacks. The Right Analog Stick is used for turning the camera or your line of sight. The L and R triggers are used for Guarding and Dashing, respectively. As explained earlier, R can also be combined with an attack button for a more powerful version of that attack.

And the rest is with the face buttons. B is used for jumping, while AXY are used for the different attacks. You also use X and Y together when your CHARGE gauge is full to launch your Spell Card / Ultimate Attack.

So, not too complex, but you have to know where to learn this. There is a Manual option in the Main Menu off to the side, but there is no Tutorial Section. It’s just like a game manual you read. Actually going into combat, you’re on your own, not knowing how to do a thing. In my opinion, there should have been a tutorial section in the beginning of Story Mode to show you the basics, rather than expecting you to see the Manual option in the Main Menu (which is on the other side of the screen by itself, away from the rest of the Game Mode options).

Presentation

Presentation is really exceptional in this game. The graphics are perfect. Every render and model is shown as a flawless representation of the characters. No jagged edges. No blurry animations. Everything looks pristine and perfect.

Music fans will also appreciate all of the classic Touhou songs that have been remixed for Burst Battle like my personal favorite, U.N. Owen Was Her. I’ve certainly heard better fan remixes, but they’re nice, nonetheless.

Performance is also quite flawless. Loading sequences are very short and the frame-rate stays a nice and perfect 60 fps whether you’re going solo, doing split-screen multiplayer, or are playing online against opponents from around the globe.

Battery Life

So, this is a 3D game. I had average expectations for Battery Life, but NIS America has, once again, shown how easily they’ve learned good Switch optimization. Here are my times, from 100% to 0%:

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 58 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 26 minutes
Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 5 hours, 05 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 5 hours, 11 minutes

This is quite surprising, and I hope NISA keeps this up. Burst Battle is a 3D game, but will net you 4-5 hours of Battery Life, no matter your settings.

Game Title: Pokemon Gold / Pokemon Silver
Developer: Game Freak
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Download: 130 Blocks
Availability: Digital Download

From the moment gamers were able to enjoy the nostalgia of the original Pokemon trilogy on the Nintendo 3DS family of systems with full Pokemon Bank support to transfer their Mewtwos, Charizards, and Articunos over to Pokemon Sun and Moon, there was one question on their minds: When will Gold, Silver, and Crystal get Virtual Console re-releases?

Nintendo answered that question earlier this year when they announced a slew of new Pokemon releases. While the Nintendo Switch got Pokken Tournament DX, the 3DS Family of Systems got news of the Silver and Gold Virtual Console re-releases and they are here.

So, here is my retro review of Pokemon Gold and Silver for the Nintendo 3DS!

Story

Silver and Gold take place not that long after the events of Red and Blue in the region/continent of Johto. You play an upcoming young Pokemon Trainer, whom embarks on their own journey to become a Champion, while encountering a strange rival who steals Pokemon and the return of the nefarious Team Rocket.

The story is pretty light, since this was still in the Game Boy era, but the story is interesting enough to keep you entertained outside of catching and training all of the Pokemon available to you.

Gameplay

Silver and Gold were not very different from Red and Blue, so you will be exploring this large overworld, doing random encounters with wild Pokemon in turn-based RPG fashion, and going through Gym Leader boss fights on your trip towards the Johto Pokemon League. Typical Pokemon formula that isn’t even that different in today’s world.

Of course, the big new feature introduced in Silver and Gold was the clock feature. The game lets you set its time and will show daylight or night time, depending on what time you play the game. This was also shown in the fact that different Pokemon appear in the same areas whether it is day or night, plus the Dark and Psychic Eevee evolutions being dictated on what time of day the Pokemon is evolved.

Apart from that, it is the same song and dance as Red and Blue. You catch Pokemon. Train and level them and let them evolve and become stronger to help you conquer all of the Trainer, Gym, and Team Rocket battles you will inevitably take part in over the course of the game.

Like with Red, Blue, and Yellow, the game supports local multiplayer for trading and fighting, and is promised to receive Pokemon Bank support, so you can transfer your shiny new Lugia and Ho-Oh over to Pokemon Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, or Ultra Moon.

As I explained in my review of Heart Gold and Soul Silver, Generation 2 is a generation packed with content. Beat the game, and then you unlock the entire Kanto region, filled with its own set of Gym Leaders to fight. Over the course of the game, I easily spent 20+ hours just doing the main quest and the post-game region.

The main problem here is that Soul Silver and Heart Gold can be played on the Nintendo 3DS family of systems, which have that much MORE content than the vanilla Gold and Silver. This wasn’t an issue for Red Blue, and Yellow because their remakes aren’t available on the 3DS, the GBA games Fire Red and Leaf Green. Going from Soul Silver to vanilla Silver is a very awkward and strange feeling.

Controls

There is very little to discuss with controls. This was originally a Game Boy Color game, before triggers were a thing on handhelds. It only had a D-Pad, A, B, Start, and Select buttons. So you can imagine the simplicity of this game’s controls.

You can move around with the D-Pad or Circle Pad. A is confirm and B is cancel, and the X and Y are also buttons for these features. Really, this is extremely simple because of it being a GBC game.

Presentation

Visually, the game looks colorful with its character models. Silver and Gold was not that different from Yellow, but the colors were more “correct”. Instead of a shade of color over an entire model, many Pokemon in Generation 2 were colored more accurately with many more colors and details. For a GBC Pokemon game, they look good.

Unlike the port of RBY, Gold and Silver also do not keep the strange flashing that I noticed in Red and Yellow. Whether this is due to better optimization or with the actual game for Generation 1, it is nice to see it optimized a little better.

Game Title: Stardew Valley
Developer: Eric Barone, Chucklefish
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Digital Download
Battery Life: 4.5 – 6.5 hours
Download: 909 MB

In the indie world, we are used to seeing small teams make games, and sometimes, those teams are as small as can be. One-Person projects don’t typically gain the admiration of the gaming world as they are normally low budget and low quality titles that seem like little more than projects that lack the crisp quality of full-blown games, even for indies.

However, there are exceptions. When one man developed a game that crossed elements from Harvest Moon, Rune Factory, and more, it took the PC crowd by storm, took the console crowd by storm, and now takes the Nintendo Switch by storm.

One of the most highly-praised indie games in recent years, here is my review of Stardew Valley for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

In Stardew Valley, you play as someone bogged down by the life of an office worker, yearning to find a better and healthier life for themselves. Following your grandpa’s advice, you seek out a worn-down farm in a small town known as Stardew Valley. From there, you seek to live as a farmer to learn a new way of life and make something new for yourself.

The plot of Stardew Valley is pretty light, savor the social elements to be explained later on. It gets the job done and has a certain, calm feel that goes with the casual flow of the game.

Gameplay

Stardew Valley is a lot of things. It is a farming simulator, but it is also a dungeon crawler, a dating simulator, a twin-stick shooter, a 2D platformer, and so much more. Imagine taking the farming and relationship elements from Harvest Moon, the dungeon elements from Rune Factory, the crafting system from Minecraft, and throwing them all together in this nice, little 2D game, and that’s what Stardew Valley is.

When you start the game, you’re given a basic set of tools and this worn down farm littered with brush, fallen trees, and rocks covering up what once was a beautiful farm. Your task is to make a life for yourself for the next 2 years (of game time), farming, finding your place in the town community, and making a living.

Your main task throughout each day in Stardew Valley is to make money and work towards your own personal goals. There is no “goal” to reach by 2 years, so you can do whatever you want. You can farm throughout the 4 seasons of the year. You can fight monsters for the Adventure’s Guild. You can play video games at the Saloon. You can restore the old community building by working with forest spirits. You can shower people with gifts until they agree to marry you. There are near-endless options with side quests popping up all over the place for you to work on.

What I love the most about this game is that it is so casual and you can choose your own objectives to work towards. Spending my days getting up, watering plants, and then gathering more plants, making more farm, planting, watering, repeat was rather dull for me. So, I decided I was going to fight off monsters in the mines for money, and steadily work on finding those nice Amethyst gems down there to work towards getting Abigail to marry me.

This is all fun and well once you get a flow in on your time during the day, how much energy you have to work, and what all you want to do each day.

However, when you accomplish your main goal, which isn’t hard to do, it feels like you’re done and you think “Okay, what next?”. So my main goal in the game was to marry Abigail, and I did that in the final season of Year 1. So we’re married. Now what do I do? Keep building up money for house upgrades to have kids? I don’t really want kids, so what else is there? Community Building, but I have to wait for next season to get the next forage set.

That is the point where the game’s best trait comes out. Stardew Valley is not a game meant to be power-played for hours on end. It is meant to be taken in small bursts. Do a day or two in the game and then put the game down. Even though you may not have any new main tasks, you can still not wear the game out by doing a whole season of “Let’s just keep building up money for next season and hope I can think of something new to work on”.

Now, speaking of time, how long can you expect to play Stardew Valley? If you want to finish the first 2 years to make sure you see all the events and see the “main quest” to its completion, you’re going to be spending at least 30-40 hours. I finished Year 1 of my first run at over 20 hours on my save file. This is not a short game, in the slightest. Even if you just want to get to marriage and that’s it, you’ll still be spending at least 18-20 hours from Day 1 to when you can build up enough Friendship Points to marry your favorite bachelor/bachelorette.

Controls

The controls are pretty simple and are shown to you every time you start loading your save file. While there is no real “tutorial”, the game shows you what to press pretty well.

You can move with the Arrow Buttons or the Left Analog Stick. The Right Analog Stick can move the cursor over objects (for those familiar with the PC version of SDV). The four triggers are used for item management. The L and R buttons are used for cycling the equipped item and, once you upgrade your backpack size, you can use ZL and ZR to switch item rows to access all inventory without having to pull up the menu.

A and B are used to interacting and canceling menu options. X is used to bring up the Crafting menu so you can build with your materials and Y lets you use a tool or weapon you currently have equipped, like a hoe, pickaxe, or sword.

All in all, it’s pretty simple and, despite the lack of a tutorial, the fact that it is shown every time you load your save file, there’s no reason for you to not know what buttons to press for what.

Presentation

Visually, the game looks very similar to Harvest Moon on the Game Boy Color, but much more refined and enhanced. It is a 2D game by nature, but the pixels are smoothed out for that retro look, but without the blurriness that comes with some 2D games.

There’s only one thing to note here for performance and presentation. Upon being released on the eShop, there were rumors spreading about an “Audio Glitch”, and that is very much a part of the game. I notice this the most while exploring the Mines, but the sound “scratches”, kind of like an old record that has scratches when it is trying to play. It’s difficult to pick this up most of the time, but whenever things get quiet, you can definitely hear it pop in and out.

There are also rumors about a glitch where the game would crash upon sleeping for the night and saving the game. But, after 30+ hours of gameplay, I have not yet encountered this.

Battery Life

Stardew Valley is one of those games where you can play A LOT of bite-sized sessions without worrying about your Switch dying on you. Here are my Battery Times, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 22 minutes
Max Brightness + No W-Fi – 4 hours, 56 minutes
Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 6 hours, 19 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 6 hours, 34 minutes

4 ½ to 6 ½ hours is pretty amazing for a Nintendo Switch title. They did a really nice job with the optimization here.

Game Title: Super Mario Odyssey
Developer: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Retail | Digital Download
Battery Life: 2.5-3.5 hours
Download: 5.3 GB

The Nintendo community is having a party right now, with Mario’s newest adventure and first official Mainline adventure debuting on the Nintendo Switch. Fans of Mario 64, Sunshine, and the franchise in general are raving about how amazing the new game is, as if it were the new Game of the Year-level game like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

I, too, was looking forward to the game. With 64 being my personal favorite game of the franchise, a new sandbox Mario was something I was looking forward to. And after clearing the story and doing some post game content, I am ready to talk about it.

So, here we go. This is my review of Super Mario Odyssey for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

The game starts out with Bowser in the process of kidnapping Princess Peach with the goal of marrying her and Mario trying to stop him. After Mario is easily pummeled and his iconic cap torn to shreds, he falls into the Cap Kingdom. Having lost an ally of his own to Bowser, a magical cap known as Cappy teams up with Mario to track down Bowser and rescue the two captive Princesses.

The story is pretty standard for Mario. Peach gets kidnapped, Mario goes off to rescue her. The main difference being Cappy and the Wedding aspect the game sets up. It is an interesting enough premise to tell you why you are going on an adventure.

Gameplay

Like Mario 64 and Sunshine before it, Super Mario Odyssey is a 3D Sandbox-style platforming game. Just to be clear, Odyssey is not an “open world”game like Zelda:Breath of the Wild. The sandbox environments do have free roam but they are all still separate, unlike games like Zelda and Skyrim. Imagine it more like Mario 64 but with slightly-bigger worlds.

Although a lot of the game feels very similar to 64 and Sunshine, Odyssey’s biggest feature to pull you in is Cappy and the 2D sections.. You use Cappy to get around, from attaching him to objects to reveal hidden paths to getting hints from him to where the next objective is.

The bigger feature here is Capture. In previous Mario games, you fight off and kill enemies. In Odyssey, you can use Cappy to possess and play as most of the enemies. If you need to fly across a wide gap, possess the nearby Bullet Bill and rocket your way across, or take over a T-Rex and rampage your way through enemies and environments alike. This feature is heavily used in both normal areas and boss fights.

The 2D sections are also something to talk about. In many areas, you will have pixel pipes to teleport through and will see 2D areas with the same graphical style as the original Mario games, allowing you to traverse 3D walls and objects as 2D Mario. This isn’t that unlike the Wall Sections from The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.

Aside from that, we have a similar situation to what we had in Super Mario 64. Every world has story-based and optional Power Moons to collect, which are used to power your ship and access later worlds. Every time you start a new Kingdom, you get a Moon count that you need to meet before the next Kingdom unlocks. So, across fighting boss fights, helping the locals, or just finding Moons hanging around, your task is to increase that Moon count so you can go to the next kingdom.

The game has a lot of Moons to collect, but that also showcases the biggest flaw for anyone but very casual gamers: The game is, by far, the easiest Mario game I have ever played. As you play through the game, you will rarely find sections that give more than slight challenge, and the Moons are displayed in so many obvious and random areas that you will be mass-collecting moons even before you get to each Kingdom’s Story Boss. Quick progress is a nice feeling, but it almost feels like you are just being handed Moons over and over, unlike previous sandbox games where each Power Star had a certain challenge and puzzle-like nature behind them. In this game, they’re just randomly hanging around on the main path.

Now, this also leads to our Length question. Asking fans around will tell you the game lasts 20 hours for story, while others will say the game has 60+ hours to it. These time segments are based on an extreme amount of side options and exploration. If you want to mostly just do the story, you should be able to complete the story in about 8 hours, while doing a few side quests here and there.

Although if want more than just story, a lot of content opens up once you complete the story. You get a post-game Kingdom that Mario 64 fans will fall in love with, and the obtainable Moon count easily doubles. To give you an idea, you can obtain over 900 Power Moons in the game, in order to unlock the 2 final Kingdoms, a large number of costumes, and the alternate ending. Doing all of that is where those 60 hour claims are coming from.

Controls

Controlling the game is where a lot of the controversy comes from within Nintendo fans. Mario Odyssey promotes Joy Con play and the heavy use of the system’s Motion Capabilities. Almost everything you can do with Cappy can be used with the Motion Controls from simple throws to AoE spin attacks. It is worth noting that most of these can be done with button controls, but not all.

Now, the button controls are pretty simple, and everything is explained as situations for them come up. You can move Mario with the Left Analog Stick and access Amiibo functions and the Smash Bros-like Snapshot Mode with the Arrow Buttons. All four triggers are used as well. ZL and ZR are used for crouching while L and R are used for centering the camera behind Mario.

The face buttons are relatively standard. You use B to jump and A to interact with menus. Y is used for Cappy, be it using him to interact with object or for throwing him to possess a nearby enemy.

Presentation

As far as graphics are concerned, Mario Odyssey looks very polished and smooth in handheld and console modes. There is a ton of detail in everything, from eye movements to shadows and water effects. It really is a great handheld game, technically.

Performance is superb as well. Short loading sequences and perfect 60 fps gameplay in both console and handheld mode really make this an experience as smooth as butter.

Battery Life

One concern I had was about how the Battery Life would be for this huge sandbox, graphical powerhouse of a Nintendo Switch game. Much like I expected, here are my times from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 34 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 38 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 05 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 18 minutes

This is actually very much like the Battery Life of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. So, expect your on-the-go adventures with Mario and Cappy to last about 2-3 hours per charge.

Game Title: Nights of Azure 2 – Bride of the New Moon
Developer: Gust, Koei Tecmo
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Retail | Digital Download
Battery Life: 3 – 4.5 hours
Download: 6.8 GB

Ever since discovering their games on the PS Vita, I’ve quickly become a fan of RPGs made by the developer Gust. Their casual-themed Atelier games are fun and cute, but when they make more serious RPGs, it also gives a really nice aura. Despite it’s technical problems, I loved the tale weaved in Ar Nosurge Plus.

I’ll admit that I was a pretty sad that when Koei Tecmo localized Nights of Azure last year, the handheld version stayed in Japan. Thankfully, its sequel did come West on handhelds last a week or two ago, and on the Nintendo Switch, allowing console and handheld gamers to enjoy the new Yuri-toned Action RPG.

So, here is my review of Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

Long ago, the great Demon known as the Nightlord was defeated and with his defeat, the world was covered with his blood, transforming all it touched into monsters known as Fiends and Demons and over the years, the agency of humans known as the Curia, have been sacrificing Priestesses to keep the constantly-resurrecting Demons from plunging the world into eternal darkness.

In what is subtly stated as “decades” after the events of the first game, the story revolves around Aluche, a Holy Knight originally tasked with sacrificing her childhood friend to seal away the powers of the new Demon Leader, the “Moon Queen”. But, after being ambushed and murdered, she re-awakens as a Half-Demon and sets off to find her missing friend and put a stop to the Moon Queen for good.

The story of Nights of Azure 2 is good at times, and off at times. The series has always had a “Yuri” theme to it, offering tones of women that are romantically attracted to one another. The base storyline is very interesting with the background story of the Nightlord and Aluche’s inner-struggles of not wanting to sacrifice her closest friend as well as resisting her thirst for her companions’ blood and it really does offer something new with character bonding.

Gameplay

Nights of Azure 2 is a hack-n-slash Action RPG with the same general feel of the original game, but with a few things changed and added here and there. But, all in all, you’ll be fighting your battles with a party of characters and slashing your way through groups of Fiends and Demons.

As you progress through the game, you will be going between a Hotel you use as your base of operations and the various dungeons in the city that’s being affected by the Moon Queen’s magic. Whenever you go out to a dungeon, you go on “Hunts”, which has you in the dungeon all day long without the ability to switch dungeons until the next day.

Now, working through days is where Gust’s iconic gameplay mechanic from Atelier comes ticking into Nights of Azure 2: Time Management. Each day of each chapter makes the Moon’s Phase wanes further towards a New Moon. If it reaches that phase, the world ends, Game Over. To restore the Moon Phases, you must find that chapter’s major boss and defeat it. Along with that, your half-demon body can only take so much stress so each dungeon raid you do is also set on a time limit (which can be increased by leveling up and learning skills).

Before you get down about having time restraints, know that they are more than generous enough for you to have lots of time in each chapter, even on the Normal and Extreme difficulty settings. Every time I played the game, I could reach the Chapter Boss in 2-3 days and would have at least 3-5 days left to do side-quests and explore hidden areas.

There is one Major Flaw in this time-based system and it’s not the timers, but the fact that you can only visit one dungeon per day. Each chapter is loaded with side-quests, from character-based quests that increases Affinity with the party members to standard killing missions that grant you special points to level up your party members.

The problem is that out of your 10-15 minutes of dungeon time, you can get each side-quest done in 2-3 minutes and have to go back to the hotel and wait until the next day before you can do any of the other side-quests in the other dungeons. It turns into 1 side quest per day unless you have multiple quests in the same dungeon, and fighting through random enemies in that dungeon just to feel like you didn’t waste the entire day for your measly 2-minute character quest.

When you’re actually out in the field, enemies spawn as you come up to them, and your party engages them in combo-based battles balanced between light and heavy attacks and feels like you’re in the middle of a Musou/Warriors game. To keep repetition from setting in, some of the party members you take with you can transform into different weapon types for you to use to change how you fight.

But the biggest aspect of combat is the Lily/Partner system. While you can just mash buttons to fight enemies, you can activate special moves with your partner by performing Double Attacks/Revenge Attacks, where you strike the same enemy as your partner at the same time. This lets you use special cinematic attacks and give you huge amounts of energy to charge your Ultimate Attacks, which are also different depending on your Party Configuration.

These attacks increase your partner’s Affinity Level with you which unlocks new skills for them and special Quests for their backstories and feelings towards Aluche. These are important not just because of that backstory, but because Affinity Levels determine whether you get the True Ending when you beat the game.

We’ve talked a lot about Time Management, but how long is the actual game? Nights of Azure 2 was only around 15-18 hours, very short for a JRPG. Nights of Azure 2 is quite a bit longer. With doing steady Story Progression and mostly focusing on the character-based side-quests, I beat the game with the True Ending in around 27 hours. I didn’t have to stop to grind but for an hour or two for Affinity in the late-game, so I’d put an average run at around 25 hours.

Beating the game also opens a few things up for replayability. You can obtain the True Ending in a single run, but you must max every playable character’s Affinity Ranks to get the Secret Epilogue. It’s also worth noting that there’s an update/patch that should be coming to US/EU later on that will remove the Moon Phase Time Limitation from New Game Plus, allowing you to have free roam for grinding out and doing all side-quests and unlocking the Epilogue in your 2nd run.

Controls

The control configuration for Nights of Azure 2 will be a bit confusing if you are not a PlayStation or Xbox gamer as it uses the same configuration as the PS4 version of the game. Bear that in mind as I explain the scheme below.

Moving around is done with the Left Analog Stick and you can move the camera with the Right Analog Stick. The D-Pad / Arrow Buttons are used to issue AI Commands or activate Buffs for the party. The triggers are all used as well. L is used for Guarding and R for Dodging/Dashing. ZL and ZR are used for Party Member skills, like Weapon Transformations.

The face buttons are where things get confusing. X and Y are used for Heavy and Light attacks, and A and B are used for jumping and partner skills. But outside of combat, A is used to confirm options and B is used to cancel them. But when you open menus, B becomes confirm and A becomes cancel. Since only the combat/dungeon controls can be modified, I had to swap A and B in Settings, which still gives the game a PlayStation-orientation, which may throw some of you off.

Presentation

Graphically, the game looks pretty nice. The renders and models all look nice and smooth, and the CG scenes look outright perfect. You will see some jagged edges in Handheld Mode, but for a portable Gust game, it looks worlds better than any of the PS Vita games Gust has made.

The technical problems of this game don’t come from the graphics, but from the stability of the frame-rate. When you are exploring dungeons, watching scenes, or customizing at your base, the frame-rate stays at a steady and stable 30 fps.

But when you enter combat with enemies, it starts to drop the moment the enemies spawn in front of you. This is also where performance changes in TV Mode and Handheld Mode. When you’re in TV Mode, the fps will drop and stay in the mid-20s most of the time, so things still stay decently-stable as you slash your way through the Fiends.

In Handheld Mode, it gets significantly worse. When it drops to the 20s in TV Mode, it can easily drop a little under 20 fps in handheld Mode, similar to some of the major drops from some of Gust’s more recent PS Vita titles. It is playable this way, but it’s pretty rough and clear that Gust is still learning how to optimize Switch games.

Battery Life

I was hopeful for Battery Life. Although we do have some nice visuals, this is also a Warriors-like RPG, so I expected it to be like Fate/Extella and be in the 3-4 hour range. Here are my times, from 100% to 0%:

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 07 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 33 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 37 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 4 hours, 32 minutes

I found this pretty acceptable. If you want your Yuri Adventures on the go, you can expect 3-4.5 hours per charge.

Game Title: DOOM
Developer: ID Software, Panic Button, Bethesda
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Retail | Digital Download
Battery Life: 2.5 – 3.5 hours
Download: 21.3 GB (9 GB for Multiplayer with Retail Release)

Despite being a solely handheld review writer, there is one game that I have written an unofficial “mini review” of sorts in the past, and that was Doom 2016. As a massive fan of Doom ever since discovering the original on Windows 95, I’ve always loved diving into the franchise and it’s one of the few games that can get me off a handheld platform and play a console.,

Of course, Doom isn’t a stranger to handhelds, either. I’ve played Doom and Doom II for the Game Boy Advance so many times that my Doom II GBA cart is worn down and can barely be read anymore. I’d always hoped for a handheld port of Doom 3 BFG Edition for the PS Vita or Nintendo Switch, but as you all know, we got something even better. Bethesda promised us a Nintendo Switch port of Doom 2016, something that before its announcement, everyone thought was not possible to run on any current handheld system.

Now that I’ve had time to dive into it and clear the campaign, I’m ready to give you my thoughts. Here is my review of DOOM for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

The basic setup of Doom 2016 is similar to the original Doom and Doom 3. You’re on Mars, Demons are invading and it’s up to you to stop them.

Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that. There is a lot of plot and lore to be found, be it from voice communications during the main story or the dozens of data files that give you the complete backstory on all characters, demons, environments, and items. There is a tale of a global energy crisis, a scientist making a deal with Demons in exchange for power, and even hints that You are the same Doom Marine from Dooms 1, 2, and Doom 64.

But, for all intents and purposes: Demons are invading. You are the only one who can stop them. Go find guns and shoot them into bloody corpses.

Gameplay

Doom is a fast-paced first-person shooting game. Across the entirety of the game, you will be running and gunning your way through wave after wave of demons and possessed humans with very mild puzzle elements in the form of color-coded card keys for unlocking doors.

The first thing to know about DOOM on the Nintendo Switch is that Panic Button removed the Snap Map Level Creator from this version of the game. Campaign Mode, Arcade Mode, and Multiplayer are still here, but Snap Map is gone, for reasons I’ll discuss in the Presentation Section of this review.

Now, Doom 2016 can basically be summarized as this: Imagine Classic Doom but with a graphical overhaul and modern shooter elements thrown in. Everything that made the original games what they were are here in Doom 2016. You have health and armor points instead of Call of Duty’s infamous Health-Regeneration system, color-coded card keys for accessing locked doors, and every level is full of secret areas and unlockables for you to go and find.

Gameplay itself, is also much more reminiscent of the original three Doom games than modern shooting games. The further you get in the game, the more overwhelmed you’re going to get by enemy numbers. What starts out as rooms of half a dozen demons will quickly turn into rooms filled with over a dozen demons or more all running towards you at the same time, leaving you no time to stand around and think strategy and just mindlessly run, strafe, and shoot until everything goes down.

This leads Doom’s Single Player campaign to be an adrenaline rush, especially in the second half of the game. Even those playing on Easy Mode will have plenty of moments where one wrong step can mean the difference between spacing out the horde to a manageable level or ending up in a corner with 2 Barons of Hell caging you in and pummeling you to death.

Putting a more modern touch on things, the game added a weapon and armor upgrade system. There are secret areas in each level with weapon upgrades you can equip and armor memory chips that can increase technological prowess of your Armor Suit. You can also further enhance the game by finding Secret Rune Trials that unlock special Cheat-like systems that enable you to get more ammo, perform special kills faster, and even maintain infinite ammo so long as you don’t lose too much health.

Campaign Mode is the real meat of the game and will take you at least 12 hours to complete your first time around. After that, you’ve got Arcade Mode that lets you play Campaign Levels in a High Score system and Multiplayer to fight with others over the net. As far as replayability goes, though, there are a lot of secrets in each level not easily found. Most notably are Classic Doom levels, which once found, allow you to play through stages from Doom 95 and Doom II with the updated graphics on enemies and your own character.

Controls

The controls for Doom are familiar if you’ve played other versions of the game. Once you get into gameplay, everything feels very much like it does in the PS4 version of the game. The main exception is that menus use the basic Nintendo format of A being select and B being cancel.

Moving around is done with the Left Analog Stick and the camera can be moved with the Right Analog Stick. The Right Analogs “click” button is used for special kills and interacting with objects, just as R3 is on PS4. The L and R triggers are used for sub-weapons and the Weapon Wheel, while ZL and ZR are used for aiming and firing your primary weapon.

Then the face buttons come in. A is used for crouching and B for jumping, while X and Y are used for pulling out the specialty weapons like the Chainsaw.

Presentation

Here is where things get interesting. As far as graphical quality, the models in Doom on Nintendo Switch look pretty much exactly the same as the models in Doom on PS4/Xbox One. But the game did have to make some sacrifices to become playable in a handheld format.

If you stop moving in-game and take a look at everything around you, you’ll notice a blur on pretty much anything not right in front of you. This seems to have been done on purpose to maintain a steady frame-rate as the game has Motion Blur settings to High by default, and the effect is a little stronger when you move from TV Mode into Handheld Mode.

This is good and bad. The good aspect is that they did this and didn’t have to reduce the graphics engine much in the transition from PS4/XB1 → Switch. The bad aspect is that it looks blurry when you stop moving and it makes reading text very difficult to do on larger TVs. I can read everything clearly on my 720p 21” TV, but I have a difficult time reading any of the data files on my 32” 1080p TV.

As far as performance goes, Load Times have improved. I compared times between the Switch and PS4 versions, and the PS4 loads story campaign stages about 11 seconds longer than the Switch does. Granted, you could still be waiting 30-40 seconds for a new story level to load, but 30-40 seconds is better than 50-60 seconds on the PS4.

Frame-rate is the biggest thing to talk about here, though. Doom on Switch has a steady 30 fps for most of the game, though there are a few sections where it is known to drop under 30. During these sections, the blurring effect seems to intensify, which causes these frame drops to feel more like slow motion in the game than freezing and jumping. It’s not that great to have these frame drops, but the way this “slow motion” drop types goes maintains the smooth feel of the gameplay and will not throw you off as much.

Battery Life

With how graphic and resource-heavy Doom is, I did not expect Battery Life to even be as high as games like Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, but here are the times I got, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 41 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 46 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 58 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 18 minutes

So, it’s around the same range as Super Mario Odyssey. Not really that high, but that was to be expected out of Doom

Game Title: Monopoly for Nintendo Switch
Developer: Ubisoft
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Retail | Digital Download
Battery Life: 2.5 – 3.5 hours
Download: 3.6 GB

There’s a kind of charm to playing board games in electronic form. For overly complex board games, it is the simplicity of it all, plus you don’t have to worry about picking up hundreds of game pieces that inevitably find their way underneath your couch. For Monopoly, though, it’s so players can’t cheat. In all the years I’ve played Monopoly, the only times I’ve played with friends and family where no one cheated was in video game form that keeps them from cheating.

But, Monopoly on game consoles is a lot more than that. Monopoly PSP was my most visited go-to game when I was bored and wanted something slow and casual to play. Ever since Monopoly was announced for the Switch, my love for Monopoly was heightened, once again.

Now that it’s here, let’s get right to it. Here is my review of Monopoly for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

Due to this game having no story, this section shall remain blank.

Gameplay

Monopoly is a pretty simple board game. You take turns moving around the board and invest in properties by purchasing them and financing houses and hotels on them. Each time you land on owned property you pay taxes to that player, and keep this going until all but 1 player ends up with no money and that person has now created a Monopoly out of all of the board/city’s locations.

Monopoly for Switch will be very familiar to people who have played the board game on the PlayStation 4. When you start a game, you can set custom rules and choose between 3 “Living Boards”, which are fully-3D boards that bring the game to life. There are also 2 classic, flat boards to choose from, the original Monopoly board and the Rabbids Monopoly board that came as DLC for Monopoly Plus on PS3 and PS4.

With comparisons, it does have more boards to choose from than in Monopoly Plus, though things come into bigger comparisons when you bring the Monopoly Fun Pack into play, which are still available for the PS4 and Xbox One. Those games had extra playing modes, like My Monopoly and Casino Boards that added a lot of different ways to play, not to mention special figure packs, like being able to use characters like Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic rather than the default pieces.

Now, comparisons aside, you can jump into a game by yourself with AI or you can make a multiplayer game with up to 6 players on a single Nintendo Switch system, which is quite a lot. Each player can use a full controller or a single Joy-Con. And if Local Multiplayer is not your thing, the game also has options for Online Multiplayer games. This lets the multiplayer experience be the most versatile and multiplayer-friendly version of Monopoly on any handheld. For comparison, the PSP version could only use one system and you had to toss the handheld from person to person as you played.

Now, playing Monopoly is simple enough, but just playing Monopoly does little to add longevity to the game. For this, there are built-in Objectives that let you perform various actions to unlock new Pieces you can use. Some of these objectives are as simple as landing on the “Go” tile, or as complex as passing an entire side of the board on a single dice roll. Either way, they do add a bit to the single player experience if you don’t have friends to play with you, since all boards are unlocked from the get-go.

Now, what kind of time-frame are we looking at? That’s very difficult to answer. A single game of Monopoly could potentially take literal hours to complete, especially if you play on the Living Boards, where animations each turn are significantly longer than on classic boards. But if you’re extremely lucky, you could potentially unlock all Objectives in 3 runs, but that’s completely based on luck. Odds are it will take much longer than that.

The bigger thing in mind is “Is it worth the price?” and that’s something we do need to make a note of. Monopoly for the Nintendo Switch costs $40, while the PS4 and Xbox One versions of Monopoly Fun Pack are half that price. That’s something you have to think on. On one hand, it’s handheld console-tier Monopoly. On another hand, it doesn’t have as much content as Fun Pack, which is cheaper.

Controls

Controlling the game is pretty simple, since there aren’t many controls to go through. Pro Controller, Single Joy-Con, or Double Joy-Con, it is a very simple game to play.

Moving around the menus is done with the Arrow Buttons / D-Pad and Left Analog Stick. Then you can choose menu options with A and cancel them with B. Finally, you’ve got X you can use on your turn to manage your property, and there isn’t much else to the control system. Monopoly is an extremely simple game and a simple control scheme to go with it.

Presentation

Visually, the game looks very pleasing. The 3D Living Boards look very likely, and all of the models are very crisp and smooth. The music that is built-in also helps with that “casual” feel as you play through each game, letting this game be kind of a “rest” game.

Now, performance was talked about a lot when this game launched. There were tons of people claiming the game had Load Times 10-20 minutes and beyond. At launch, this was divided. Some people had normal Load Times, and some people had long ones. With most of the problem situations, restarting your Switch would resolve this issue. However, Ubisoft has since released a Patch for the game that permanently fixes this issue. So, if you run into this problem, try updating the software and you should be able to grab that patch.

As far as the rest of performance, everything is good. FPS stays nice and smooth through all of the animations and I’ve seen no bugs or freezing/crashing across the game while I’ve played. That Load Times issue aside, there’s a nice bit of optimization done here.

Battery Life

I feel that Battery Life is very important for a game like Monopoly. While you can save at any turn you want, Monopoly is known for being a very long game. Here are my times, from 100% to 0%:

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 36 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 46 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 11 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 28 minutes

This isn’t as good as I was hoping for, but it’s average for a Switch game. You’ll get about 2.5 – 3.5 hours per charge. That’s enough to do a couple long games.

Game Title: LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2
Developer: Traveler’s Tales, TT Fusion
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Retail | Digital
Battery Life: 2.5 – 3.5 hours
Download: 10.6 GB

LEGO games are a hobby of mine, and I have said before that the fact that the Nintendo Switch is getting true multiplatform console LEGO titles, it means that handheld gamers can now experience true, fully-fledged LEGO games on the go. It started with LEGO City and LEGO Ninjago Movie, but the latter really was not on the large scale that many previous console LEGO games have been.

However, I was hopeful about the newest LEGO game, because it was an original story game, and it was a LEGO Marvel game, which are known to be big and exciting. Even LEGO The Avengers had a sandbox free-roam world on handhelds, and an even bigger experience on home consoles.

So, let us take a look at the game. Here is my review of LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

The Avengers are enjoying times of peace when Kang the Conqueror appears in the skies of Manhattan and uses Time Travel technology to capture the citizens of Earth as he builds his utopia, known as “Chronopolis”, a giant city made up of several cities and locales taken from different time periods and dimensions..

Regrouping, The Avengers are joined by The Guardians of the Galaxy and various heroes from the alternate dimensions brought into Chronopolis. With an even larger group of heroes than usual, the team goes into action to take down Kang and restore the worlds to the way they are supposed to be.

I would not call the story of this game incredible or mighty in any way. The story is pretty simple. Kang screws up reality and you go on a long fetch quest to penetrate his fortress and make things right. The best part of the story is, instead, the plethora of world mash-ups, like seeing Spider-Man meeting Spider-Gwen for the first time, or Ms Marvel’s nerdgasms as you explore New York Noire.

Gameplay

Like previous games before it, LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 is a 3d platforming and beat-em-up game with light puzzle elements. However, I can add in that this game is also open-world in nature instead of just having confined levels and small hub worlds like the Vita version of LEGO The Avengers.

The biggest thing of note here is that there is an Open World hub you can explore here. Unlike the sandbox New York from previous LEGO Marvel games, this is a huge open world with over a dozen different level-sized areas you can go to and explore. This is the largest world I have ever seen in a LEGO game. Once you start flying around, you see that this is to such a large scale that handheld gamers may be overwhelmed by its size at first.

As far as progression goes, you have an ongoing story, which constantly pushes you towards your next Story Level. Between levels, though, are pre-story missions that will unlock full levels and optional missions and quests you can do in the Open World areas. While out here, you can use any unlocked character, or a custom character you can craft with their own unique look and powers. So, you always have the choice of either going towards the next story segment or wandering around the open world for quests, races, or real-time combat events that spawn in the various areas you can explore.

Unlike the Open World, story levels are in enclosed areas, which is much more familiar to what handheld gamers have had with LEGO games in the past. Each level had a predetermined party of 2-4 characters that can platform, fight off enemies, and solve light puzzles as you navigate your way through the level and story scenes of that chapter. As always, each story level ends in a boss fight with a famous Marvel villain and finishing a level unlocks Free Play, where you can bring other characters in to gain access to secret areas for extra collectibles and playable characters.

The nice thing about this game is how well it mashes up different Marvel worlds and gives a ton of different comic runs their own shine that don’t typically have a lot of it outside of video games. You have levels based on big hitters like Thor and Spider-Man but you also have levels around less-known comics like Sub-Mariner and The Old West.

This also ties into length. With so many different franchises getting the spotlight, the story mode of the game will take you a good amount of time to finish. I am used to LEGO games taking around 6-8 hours for their entire story scenarios, but LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 took me around 16 hours to get to the End Credits.

After you finish the story, you are left with all the side missions you can do until the bulk of the DLC releases, which will coincide with the upcoming MCU movies, like Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War. But every area in the open world has real-time crime events for you to go through as well as a lot of puzzles and hidden collectibles to collect, so there is a lot you can do just by exploring around each area.

Controls

Controlling the game is not hard to do. LEGO really sticks to the same general control scheme in all of its games, so if you have played a previous LEGO Switch game, you know the drill.

The Left Analog Stick is used for moving and the Right Analog Stick can move the camera. The four triggers are used as well. L and R are used for centering the camera in the Open World and ZL/ZR are used to swap between your party members during gameplay.

Then we get to the face buttons. A is used for interacting with objects and Charge Attacks while B is used for jumping and activating flight for flying characters such as Iron Man, Captain Marvel, and Spider-Woman. Y is used for melee and lock-on attacks while X is used for swapping nearby party members and activating certain characters’ transformations, like Ms Marvel growing into a Giant or Spider-Gwen turning into Gwen Stacy.

All in all, pretty simple and, as always, the game shows you how to do everything via tutorials.

Presentation

Graphically, the game looks good for the most part. When the game is docked, everything looks really fluid, smooth and all around flawless. No jagged edges to be seen. However, in handheld mode, the visuals do get a bit blurry. It is not a huge blur, but it is noticeable when switching between the two modes.

Performance, though, is done quite well. The first level seems a little shaky, but for the most part, it is a nice and smooth fps with little to no drops across the game in both docked and handheld modes.

The only issue with performance is crashing. I had the game crash on me twice when I was playing the game, both in the Open World environment. There did not seem to be a trigger for these crashes. One was right after I assembled a LEGO object while the other was when I was exploring in the air as Spider-Gwen. I have heard reports of crashing in other areas, like during story scenes, but have not encountered that, myself. And 2 crashes in 16 hours isn’t terrible, but could potentially be an issue.

Battery Life

I had a general thought on what Battery Life would be. LEGO games, after all, tend to all have similar battery life. Here are my times, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 47 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 51 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 13 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 39 minutes

This is becoming the norm for more and more games. LEGO Marvel 2 will net you between 2.5 and 3.5 hours per charge.

Game Title: Gear Club Unlimited
Developer: Eden Games, Microids
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Retail (GameStop Exclusive) | Digital
Battery Life: 3-4 hours
Download: 5.4 GB

Nintendo has been known for racing games, but a lot of that genre pretty much comes down to games like Mario Kart and Diddy Kong Racing. Those are fun racers, but they are not racing sims, per say. When a lot of car fanatics look towards video games, they look for games that not only have real cars in them, but work hard to become Realistic Driving Simulators, putting in realistic detail into the cars as well as real-world physics into the driving and handling of those cars.

When you look towards Sony and Microsoft, there are established brands for this sort of game, which are Gran Turismo and Forza. For Nintendo, what is there?

Thanks to Eden Games, the developers behind almost 25 years of racing games, from the Need for Speed series to Test Drive Unlimited, the Switch has gotten what was advertised as one of these types of driving games. Here is my review of Gear Club Unlimited for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

Due to this game having no story, this section shall remain blank.

Gameplay

Gear Club Unlimited is classified as an Arcade-style racing game with light sim building elements. With no free-roam map, you go from race to race from a point-to-point map and, with each race being relatively light on length, it feels like a very Arcade-like experience.

The first thing we need to go over is this: Gear Club Unlimited is an enhanced port of Gear Club, which is a Freemium game you can play on iOS and Android. So, what is the difference between the two? From what I’ve experienced, from a gameplay perspective, here is what has changed between the original Mobile release and the Nintendo Switch release:

1. In-App Purchases have been removed, giving you an unlimited supply of Rewinds
2. In-Game Achievements that used to give Gold for IAPs now give normal cash for purchasing new cars
3. A few new control options are available
4. Graphics have been slightly enhanced

Aside from the above, it is mostly the same game. So, given that mobile is Free and Switch is $50, let’s talk about what the game has to offer to start seeing if there is a justification in that price-tag.

Progression in the game is based off of locked areas on the map and winning races. At the start, you only have one car dealer and races built around those lower-tier vehicles. As you win races, you earn money for upgrades and more cars, and you earn Gold Stars depending on your place at the race’s end. As you gain stars, you unlock new areas of the map, which in turn, unlocks new races, new championships, and new car dealers for taking on the higher-tier races.

Along with this is one of the game’s most unique features: The Performance Shop. In order to upgrade your cars, you have to make and upgrade facilities for different types of tune-ups. You can use your money to create Performance Facilities for tune-ups like Engine and Aerodynamic upgrades as well as Cosmetic Facilities for changing the paint style or adding Wings or Body Kits to your cars. This is just as much fun at times, as races because you can freely place and upgrade these services as well as parking spaces and dozens of decoration items to customize your shop.

When you get into the actual races, you are placed on either asphalt tracks for normal races or dirt tracks for Rally Races. There are a few types of races, but all pretty much come down to finishing the race before anyone else. That’s also where the handheld nature of this game can really shine. Each race is bite-sized, most only lasting 2-3 minutes at the most before you end the race and get your rewards. These quick races are perfect for on-the-go travel when you only have a few minutes to spare for a quick race or two.

The most unique and flexible feature in races is the Rewind feature. In any race, at any time, you can tap X to freeze time and rewind your race around 10 seconds or so, letting you resume anywhere you were at the Rewind’s Time. This is useful for fixing mistakes or repeating turns to try to learn and master them. On Mobile, these were In-App Purchases, but in Unlimited, you have an infinite supply of them.

While the car roster isn’t huge at 32 cars, it is worth noting that Eden Games worked with all car manufacturerst to represent realistic physics and handling, making every car a different kind of experience once you go into your races. There is a big difference in handling when you swap from your tuned-up 2015 Mustang GT to your newly-acquired Nissan GT-R Nismo.

There is also an extended amount of flexibility. Whether you’re a casual racing fan or a hardcore one, the game has built-in difficulty settings to suit to your own taste as well as driving assists that will let the AI influence various parts of your car, like changing gears, braking for turns, and even the acceleration, itself. You could set it so all you have to do is turn, or you can set it so you do everything, all the way down to changing gears as you speed up.

Finally, we need to talk about length. With each race only taking 2 minutes to complete, you have to think about how long it will actually take you to finish the game. Unlimited features around 200 different races and the final section of the map requires you to have 529 stars, which is completing a bare minimum of 176 of those races. Considering I spent just as much time in the Performance Shop as I did in races, I would clock unlocking everything at a bare minimum of around 11-12 hours, assuming you never repeat races to grind for money.

Outside of that, you’ve also got multiplayer. The downside of this is that Multiplayer is Local-Only. You can do 2-4 player split-screen locally, but there is no Online Mode outside of the Daily Race events where you race and compare your score to others around the world via Leaderboards.

Controls

Outside of control additions like Transmission options and HD Rumble, Gear Club Unlimited also offers you button controls for your racing. On Mobile, you had to buy the Game Vice controller (which is advertised every time you open the mobile app) attachment for button controls, which would set you back no less than $75-100 on its own. So, considering the perspective of someone who wants button controls, this version of the game is easily half the price of that attachment.

Controlling the game isn’t too hard. You can steer the car with the Arrow Buttons/D-Pad and/or the Left Analog Stick. All four triggers are used as well. L and R are used for changing camera angles and looking behind you. ZL is used for the normal brake while ZR is used to accelerate.

The face buttons can be a little different, depending on your settings. By default, A and B are also used for Acceleration and Brakes, but if you set Transmission to manual, they’ll be used for shifting gears. X is used for activating Rewinds, and Y is used for the Handbrake for sharp turns and drifting.

Presentation

Graphically, the game’s cars look absolutely gorgeous. There was a huge amount of detail thrown into each individual car, from accurate interiors to their real-world counterparts to the mirror effect on the car bodies that showcase actual environments that you are racing past. While the environments aren’t as massively-detailed, every car looks really nice.

In comparison with the Mobile release, Unlimited looks around the same. It does have slightly-enhanced graphics, but you have to look really close to actually see the difference.

Performance, I only have one issue with. Frame-rate is a solid 30 fps and the game’s never crashed on me. However, there is one glitch that I want to talk about. About half a dozen times as I played the game, I would go into a race where most of the controls would no longer work. The Left Stick would start rotating the camera and Braking/Accelerating would do absolutely nothing.

When this happens, you need to quit to the Overworld Map and re-enter the event. It is a minor inconvenience, but one that I found to happen relatively often.

Battery Life

Considering how bite-sized the races are, I was hoping for some decent Battery Life, and that is about what I got. Here are my times, from 100% to 0%:

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 08 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 30 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 52 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 58 minutes

As the above shows, you’ll get around 3-4 hours per charge, which isn’t too bad. It’s a little higher than the average, so your bite-sized racing will last you a good while on-the-go.

Game Title: The Elder Scrolls V – Skyrim
Developer: Bethesda Studios
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Retail | Digital Download
Battery Life: 2.5 – 3 hours
Download: 14.5 GB

Skyrim on the go is a big thing right now, but it was also a big thing back in 2016. It is common knowledge to followers of this website and channel that the first handheld to have Skyrim on the go was the GPD Win, the miniature PC with a built in gamepad. That is where I first played Skyrim and spent dozens of hours into fighting dragons, getting married, and doing everything for everyone.

But the newest version of the famed game is even more important for handheld fans. Bethesda ported over the game to a dedicated handheld, a Nintendo handheld bringing Nintendo Fans Skyrim for the first time.

Now that the game is out and there are questions everywhere, let’s get right to it. This is my review of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

200 years after the events of Oblivion, the country of Skyrim is in the middle of a Civil War. Just as the war is at a crucial point, the mythic beings known as Dragons appear in the skies of Skyrim, harbingers of Doom that bring with them the End of the World. You take up the mantle of Dragonborn, a mortal with Dragon Blood coursing through their veins, to venture out to find out why the Dragons have returned and stop them from bringing about Tamriel’s Apocalypse.

The story of Skyrim is interesting and epic in its own right with it throwing you into battle with huge dragons, but the real charm is how much lore is in the game. Almost every NPC in every town has their own backstory, mission set, and set of history and lore behind them. The sheer amount of lore in this game is overwhelming and can keep you asking questions and getting answers far beyond the end of the game.

Gameplay

Skyrim, much like its predecessors, is an open-world Action RPG. Across the entirety of the game, you’ll be navigating a huge world map full of towns, dungeons, and lots of dragons that all want you dead.

One of the biggest questions that we’ve had since it was announced is what version of Skyrim this is. After all, Skyrim on the Switch is titled “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim”, leading many to believe we would be getting the Vanilla version from 2011 rather than Special Edition from 2016. After much research, it is clear that Skyrim Switch is Special Edition without Mods. While the Switch version is unique with having Zelda-based equipment, like the Master Sword, it is essentially Special Edition without the patch that added Mods on PS4 and Xbox One.

Skyrim’s Progression is mostly one of Exploration. From the moment you start the game and go through the tutorial area, you will be thrown into this gigantic world with a marker for where the Main Quest will start up to put you through the “Stop the Dragons” plotline. However, like Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you have the choice of exploration. You can go and discover various towns like Riften and do all of the main quests for that town and all of its NPCs and repeat the process without touching the Main Quest.

And that is the beauty of Skyrim, the freedom of choice. You can do the Main Quest, or you can go do quests to buy a home and get married before doing the story, do the DLC Story Quests, spend time upgrading your Weapons and Armor, join the Civil War, etc. You do what you want to do and, with the character creator, and a dozen different types of weapon skills you can level up, you can be what you want to be as well.

And on all the RPG elements, that ties into combat, which you’ll do everywhere in the open world and dungeons. Skyrim lets you create your own character from several races, each with their own perks and strengths, like the Wood Elf’s skill in Archery. After that, you can do whatever you choose as any sort of weapon, magic, or anything else you can do has a proficiency level that increases as you use it. I wanted to be a Wood Elf whom was proficient in Archery and use the Master Sword with the Healing Spell, so all I had to do was use One-Handed Swords and Heal a lot and eventually those skills leveled to the point where they were even more effective than using bows.

The biggest part of Skyrim, though, is its length and amount of content. You’ll see people talk about how Skyrim easily lasts 100-200+ hours and that is very true, depending on what you do and how -much- you want to do. Since I do like realistic time-frames in my reviews, let’s talk about how long it will take you to get through the game without doing every little thing there is to do.

If you do stuff on the side here and there, but mostly stick to the Main Storyline, you should be able to finish off Skyrim’s Final Boss in roughly 30-40 hours. Adding onto that, the Dawnguard DLC’s Main Quest will add around 8 hours to that total, and the Dragonborn DLC’s Main Quest another 5 hours. That would put you at around 52 hours, which is excluding the majority of major quests from the various towns. I hit that, and the only non-Main stuff I did was Leveling Smithing so I could upgrade the Master Sword, Getting Married, and gaining reputation in Riften to afford a house.

So, we are looking at a minimum of 50 hours for Main Quest stuff.

Controls

Controls aren’t too difficult in Skyrim, although it is a little different from PS4/XB1.

The Left Stick is used to move and the Right Stick is used for moving the camera. The triggers is where things get a little different. The L button is used for dashing and R is used for Shouts/Powers. ZL and ZR are used for combat with your Left and Right hand. On PS3 and PS4, these were swapped. L1/R1 were combat and L2/R2 were Sprinting/Shouts.

Then you’ve got your Arrow Buttons / D-Pad, which are used for your favorites menu, where you can freeze time and access selected weapons, spells, and powers without cycling through the entire menu. And the face buttons. The A button is used for interacting and talking with NPCs and B is used for accessing the menus for the Map, Skill Trees, and Inventory. X is used for Jumping and Y is used for pulling out or putting away your equipped weapon(s).

This is really similar to other consoles’ control schemes, so it should be pretty simple to get used to. You also have motion controls for combat, but those can be toggled on and off in the menu.

Presentation

Graphically, as I said above, Skyrim on Switch is Special Edition, so you’ve got high-definition textures and pretty much no jagged edges or blurriness anywhere. When you have the game docked, everything looks smooth and perfect. In Handheld, there are some small jagged edges here and there, but they are few and far between. For all intents and purposes, the game looks very pretty, just like on PS4 and Xbox One.

Performance is also very nice. Load Times have been reduced a little bit. Load Times that take 20 seconds on PS4 take around 14-15 seconds on Switch. And the frame-rate is a constant 30 fps. I saw the frames drop a couple times, but only for a split-second and the drop was not heavy. Overall, it is a very smooth experience.

However, that doesn’t mean Skyrim’s known Glitchiness doesn’t come up here. Glitches are still here, from good to bad. You’ve got the ever-useful Item Duplication and Jump-Climbing Glitches still present in the game, but I have had the game crash on me several times. To be specific, it has crashed on me 4 times in the 50 hours I’ve played it, so make sure you save often to not have to repeat some boss fights like I did.

Battery Life

Considering how resource-heavy Skyrim is, especially in its Special Edition, I was expecting pretty low Battery Life. Here are the times I got, from 100% to 0%

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 34 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 37 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 55 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 02 minutes

This is pretty low, as I expected. Skyrim has around the same Battery Range as Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which makes sense.

Game Title: Resident Evil Revelations
Developer: Capcom
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Retail (North America), Digital
Battery Life: 2.25 – 3 hours
Download: 12 GB

Resident Evil is a series that is known for having games on Nintendo systems now, though it used to be rather surprising to see Nintendo systems hosting survival horror and horror shooting games, but the GameCube was known for its remake of the first game, the DS had an enhanced port of the PS1 version of the original game, and Resident Evil Revelations was originally an exclusive to the Nintendo 3DS, before its success led it to be ported over to 7 other consoles.

The Revelations series has been a big topic of debate for handhelds because Revelations came out for the 3DS, with no PlayStation handheld version in sight. Then, later on, Sony Third Party Productions got a Mobile Developer to make a PS Vita version of Revelations 2, with no 3DS version in sight. It’s been a topic for debate and a lot of fighting over the net. In fact, it got so heated in my video review of Revelations 2 for the PS Vita that I had to disable comments to keep things under control.

Now, however, handheld gamers can be happy by having both on one system. Since the games released separately, let’s review them separately. To start us off, here is my review of Resident Evil Revelations for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

Revelations is set between the events of Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5. As part of the newly-founded BSAA organization, Jill Valentine and her new partner find themselves lured into a BOW-infested cruise ship, left behind by a bio-terrorism group known as Veltro, responsible for unleashing a legion of Hunters and a new virus on the solar-powered city Terragrigia.

As Jill tries to find a way off the ship and send for help, Chris Redfield and his new partner are sent in to find her and the one responsible for the trap she was baited into.

The plot of Revelations is mostly here to show more of the BSAA than we found out in Resident Evil 5 and how the world of Resident Evil continues on without the Umbrella Corporation causing all of the B.O.W. Fear across the series. It’s not the best the series has to offer, but it’s far from the worst.

Gameplay

Mimicking the gameplay of RE5, Revelations is a third-person horror-themed shooting game. While we do have a lot of survival and puzzle elements in play here, it mostly sticks with the gameplay set in stone by Resident Evil 4 and 5. You’ll be exploring the cruise ship with an over-the-shoulder perpsective, solving puzzles to find new areas and shooting down lots of B.O.W.s.

If you’ve played Revelations on the 3DS, you will be disappointed to find that Capcom made very few changes between the handheld game and the console remaster. Revelations on the Switch is just like Revelations on the 3DS, with minor changes, like the control scheme, the graphics, and the new mini-game they added for Raid Mode Points.

If you are solely talking about the Switch version, it has a couple exclusive features that other systems do not have. In Raid Mode, you can scan Amiibo Figures to get free items to use in your Raids, and you’ve got the top-down shooting mini-game you can use to get BP outside of playing the Raid Mode Stages. Outside of that are the Joy-Con Motion Controls.

Progression through the game is what made Revelations stand out so much. The game is comprised of chapters, where half of them are more focused on shooting down enemies, and others are more focused on solving puzzles. The puzzle-solving chapters have you fighting enemies here and there, but place you in small, confined areas with emblem-themed doors that require keys to open. This brought back the retro sense of exploration and search from the original two Resident Evil games as you have to search for keys to unlock doors to the next area.

To go along with this exploration feature is the Scan Gun the game gives you. Much like Moira’s Flashlight in Revelations 2, you can use the Scan Gun to focus on points of interest in each room to reveal hidden items like extra ammunition or side-weapons like grenades. It is also used for Green Herbs that are used for healing. There are very few herbs for you to find, so by scanning each enemy you come across, you’ll eventually be rewarded with more herbs. This puts an even higher focus on exploration in the higher difficulties, where healing items are few and far between.

The combat in the game is pretty much the same as it has always been from RE4 to RE6. Aim and shoot at enemies with your fire-arms, while your partner supports you. The game also has Weapon Customization like Revelations 2 does, where you can pick up Custom Parts as you explore and equip those parts to your weapons for enhancements, like bigger clips, more damage, or Burst Shots.

The only thing I don’t like is that it is designed too much like RE5, especially for a game that released less than a year before RE6 came out. You only have a single walking speed so you cannot dash, turning movement is relatively limited, maintaining the more tank-like RE4 controls, and ladders are all automatic. When this game came to the 3DS, it wasn’t as much of an issue, considering the 3DS’ limited processing power compared to the PS3 and Xbox 360 and limited controls. However, on the Switch, it will feel very strange and very stiff compared to other games in the series.

Now, on time and length, things are relatively decent. The Story Campaign spans 12 episodes and should take you between 7 and 10 hours to clear, depending on what difficulty setting you choose to play on. After that, you can do New Game Plus to replay with your unlocked gear or dive into Raid Mode to play through 20 stages taken from the game as you level up your characters and weapons, and unlock characters and costumes you can also use in campaign.

If you want a more “do everything” time frame, I would put Campaign + Clearing the 20 stages in Raid Mode at around 15 hours or more, assuming you don’t do a lot of stage repeating for level grinding. In other words, you’ve got a good amount of content to go through in the game.

Controls

The control scheme of this game isn’t too confusing, but I’ll go further into detail of this as a package deal when I review the Switch version of Revelations 2. First of all, the Clicking of the Analog Sticks are not used in this game.

Moving around is done with the Left Analog Stick and moving the camera is done with the Right Analog Stick. The Arrow Buttons / D-Pad are used for cycling your weapons and subweapons. The L and R triggers are used for the Scan Gun and Throwing Sub-Weapons, while the ZL button is used for aiming your currently-equipped weapon and ZR for firing that weapon. Alternatively, you can hit ZR by itself to use your knife/melee attack.

Finally, the face buttons. A is used for interacting with objects and doors, while B can be used for quick 180 degree turns. X is used for healing with Green Herbs and Y is used for manually reloading your equipped weapon.

I do have a nitpick, though.  Capcom has included Motion Controls for aiming, reloading, and using melee attacks.  However, the motion aiming is only available when you use the Joy-Cons.  Unlike Skyrim and Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you cannot use Motion Controls when you are in Handheld Mode or when using the Pro Controller.

All in all, it’s a pretty simple moveset, but as I said above, I’ll go into more detail of this when I review Revelations 2’s Switch version.

Presentation

While the 3DS version of Revelations looked really good for a handheld game, the Switch version looks even better. All of the renders are smoothed out to look absolutely flawless. From the lighting and shadows to the level of detail of Jill’s BSAA Suit, it looks very refined and smooth.

As far as performance goes, it is done well, for the most part. The Frame-Rate is an impressive 60 fps in Docked and Handheld Modes, with it dipping very few times and never under 30 fps. The Loading Sequences are a topic for debate. Once you get into your Save File, load times are nice and quick. When you first boot the game, though, you’ll be at a single Loading Screen for over a minute.

To help this out, you can play the Raid Mode’s new Top-Down Minigame on this loading screen so you have something to do while the game loads. But, it still takes that long to load.

Battery Life

I’ll be honest with you. I was expecting more Battery Life out of Revelations than what we got, especially considering the fact that it was made originally to be a handheld game. But, here are my times, from 100% to 0%:

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 18 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 30 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 51 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 03 minutes

To put that into perspective, Zelda: Breath of the Wild on maximum settings gets 2 hours, 36 minutes, so Revelations uses up more power than Breath of the Wild, which is, to be honest, shocking. 2-3 hours isn’t awful, and is clearly there because they went for 60 fps, but I expected more.

Game Title: Resident Evil Revelations 2
Developer: Capcom
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Availability: Digital Download
Battery Life: 2.25 – 3.25 hours
Download: 23.6 GB

Resident Evil Revelations 2 and I have an interesting history. Outside of the original game, it’s the one game in the series I’ve replayed an obsessive number of times across 3 separate platforms. My PS Vita review of the game is also my most popular video on my YouTube channel, currently sitting at over 62,000 views.

Ever since it was announced for the Switch, I was looking forward to playing through it again. Now I’ve cleared the game and the DLC campaigns and am ready for this. Here is my review of Resident Evil Revelations 2 for the Nintendo Switch!

Story

Just like how Revelations took place between Resident Evil 4 and 5, Revelations 2 takes place between the events of Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 6.

Claire Redfield (from Resident Evil 2 and Code Veronica) is now a member of anti-bioterrorist group Terra Save and attending a party to welcome newcomer Moira Burton when the entire group is attacked and kidnapped.

The story then takes 2 different approaches. In the first half of each chapter, we see Claire’s Journey. Waking on a strange island filled with B.O.W.s and now under the surveillance of a woman known as “The Overseer”, she and Moira must fight their way through the island and find their fellow Terra Save co-workers before the monsters do.

And in the second half, we see Barry Burton’s journey 6 months later as he arrives on the island to search for his missing daughter.

The plot of Revelations 2 is a good story not because of its entire narrative, but in how Moira develops as a character and the lore behind The Overseer and her real intentions. It’s a type of plot point that is unique in the series and goes far beyond the typical virus experiments the series is known for.

Gameplay

Like many games before it, Revelations 2 is a Third-Person Horror Shooter. In all of your levels and environments, you’re going to be navigating dangerous areas and taking out enemies with weapons, be it Barry’s signature Magnum, Claire’s Sub-Machine Gun, or Moira’s Crowbar.

Just like with Revelations, we have to ask what’s different between previous versions of the game and the Nintendo Switch version, with handheld fans mostly asking the difference between Revelations 2 on the Switch vs PS Vita. The main additions are Motion Controls and a new Mini-Game for Raid Mode, inspired and playing very much like the old NES Ghosts n Goblins game. Other than that, it includes all the DLC like the other console full releases do.

Revelations 2 is best put as taking the dark environments and tones from Revelations and combining them with an enhanced gameplay style from Resident Evil 6. All of Revelations’s control and gameplay flaws have been removed and replaced by a much more Co-Op oriented style of 6’s gameplay engine. You can dash, the AI partners can be controlled and have different playstyles and uses in combat, you’ve got shared inventory, and everything just generally plays so much better.

With all of the focus on Co-Op Play, there is only one real downer about Revelations 2. There is full Co-Op Play for the Story Campaign, but it is only available offline for Couch Co-Op. That means you cannot connect to the Internet and co-op with friends around the world like you can in Raid Mode, and it feels like a huge missed opportunity.

Like the first Revelations, this game plays in Chapters as the chapters of the game initially released separately, like a Telltale Games’ title. This isn’t all that different from the first Revelations, but they’ve added in different elements to the chapters and 2 sets of playable characters, where your decisions in Claire’s Campaign will directly affect many factors in Barry’s Campaign, like traps, enemies, level shortcuts, and endings.

As far as combat goes, not a lot is different from Revelations. You can aim and fire with your weapons, and you’ve got guns and melee attacks. The main addition is the bigger focus on stunning and performing melee follow-ups on enemies. This ties into the Co-Op, with Natalia being able to point Barry towards invisible enemies, and Moira being able to stun enemies with her flashlight, enabling Claire to perform follow-up attacks to conserve ammo.

What is different is character development and growth. When you start the game, everything is at its base value, like any other RE game. However, almost every aspect of combat can be enhanced through a Skill Tree. Whether it’s how much health a Green Herb restores or how quickly you can slash your knife, the BP you earn in Campaign, Raid Mode, and the DLC Campaigns can all be used to upgrade your abilities and the abilities of the AI, making it almost feel completely different once you start playing Story Mode again with a completed Skill Tree.

The same can be said of Raid Mode. Revelations 2’s Raid Mode has more than 4 times the content of Revelations, and every character can be leveled up and enhanced with skills, like max health, weapon efficiency, and different combat styles for sub-weapons.

Before I get too carried away, let’s talk about length. If this is your first time playing Revelations 2, you likely won’t know how to create the shortcuts in Barry’s Campaign. With that in mind, your first run through the Story Mode on the Normal Difficulty will likely take you around 9-10 hours. If you add onto that the 45 stages of Raid Mode (plus multiple difficulty modes for all of those stages), we are talking at least 20 hours of content, and that’s assuming you don’t replay the store for the more interesting unlocks, like Infinite Ammo and the Special Weapons.

Controls

As far as the control scheme is concerned, you should prepare yourself for adjustments. While Revelations on Switch closely follows the control setup the 3DS used, Revelations 2 closely resembles the control scheme used on the PlayStation 4.

The Left Analog Stick is used to move and the Right Analog Stick is used for the camera. The L trigger opens the menu for using sub-weapons and the R trigger is used to use Green Herbs to heal yourself, while ZL and ZR are used for aiming and shooting. Also, ZR can be used by itself for melee attack and follow-ups.

Here’s where it gets really different, the Face Buttons. A is used for performing a dodge/jump and B is used for dashing and interacting with most objects, like doors. This is the opposite of Revelations, where A was used to interact with doors. The X button lets you switch control between your two characters, and Y is used for picking up items, like ammo and herbs.

As with Revelations, this game has motion controls for aiming and reloading. However, just like Revelations, these motion controls are exclusive to the Joy-Cons. Gyro Aiming is not possible on the Pro Controller. I’m not sure why, since even the PS Vita version of the game has Gyro Aiming. But if you use a Pro Controller, you’re stuck with manual aiming.

Presentation

First of all, this game looks wonderful. If you’re coming from the PS Vita version of the game, this is a clear picture of what happens when Capcom makes a port, themselves vs a poorly-optimized port. There is so much more detail, the lighting is better, etc. Revelations 2 is nice and smooth, just like Revelations.

Performance is also good, for the most part. Frame-Rate stays at a locked 30 fps and I never saw it drop across my first run through Story Mode. Load Times, however, are another story. On the PS Vita, loading a save or a new chapter normally took about 40-60 seconds or more, and that has not changed here. The initial Load Time for the game booting up is quick, but every loading sequence afterwards is extremely long. It’s like the loading situation from Revelations but swapped. Quick Boot-up, long campaign loading sequences.

Battery Life

If you’ve ever wondered if reducing a game’s frame-rate would improve Battery Life, the answer is yes, as I found out with going from Revelations to Revelations 2. Here are my times, from 100% to 0%:

Max Brightness + Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 26 minutes
Max Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 2 hours, 31 minutes

Low Brightness + Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 04 minutes
Low Brightness + No Wi-Fi – 3 hours, 11 minutes

If you compare that to Revelations, Revelations 2 has more details, a more complex gameplay system, but 30 fps instead of 60 and gained around 10 minutes on the Battery title. 10 minutes isn’t a lot, but it’s 10 minutes.

Game Title: Shantae Half-Genie Hero
DLC Title: Friends to the End
DLC Type: Story Campaign / Additional Characters
Platforms: Nintendo Switch (Reviewed), PlayStation Vita / Vita TV
Price: $7.99 USD

Doing reviews for Game DLC Campaigns is still a pretty new concept for me. I’ve only done one before, for the 1st Story Expansion for platformer Shantae: Half-Genie Hero. I had fun doing it, so I’m planning on doing more Story-based DLC campaigns in the future. Although I’m far from being able to review the long-anticipated Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Story Expansion, I do have something for you today.

Coming from the same game as my 1st DLC Review, the new Story Expansion for Shantae: Half-Genie Hero came out yesterday and I’m ready to give you my thoughts on it. So, here is my review of Shantae: Half-Genie Hero – Friends to the End!

**SPOILER WARNING! Friends to the End takes place in a crucial segment of Half-Genie Hero’s Storyline. If you have not completed the Base Game, SKIP the Story Section of this Review!**

Story

Friends to the End takes place in the same story segment that the Risky Boots DLC took place. Through unseen manipulation by Risky Boots, Shantae has her magic inverted, transforming from a being of Good into a being of Evil. As the Evil Magic overwhelms her body, she falls unconscious, leaving behind a Portal leading into her mind. Series veterans Sky, Bolo, and Rottytops leap into the portal with the intention of finding the Good Shantae and bringing her back.

The nice thing about this campaign is that there is a lot more story to it. In the Risky Boots DLC, you didn’t get much dialogue and there wasn’t that much to the story. But not only is Friends to the End canon within the game’s plotline (which Pirate Queen’s Quest clearly is not), you also have a lot of dialogue in each stage and see the trio of Heroes grow from trying to all play the Hero to understanding the need to work together to rescue their friend.

Gameplay

The gameplay genre of Half-Genie Hero has not changed, but how you play it has. You’re still platforming through 2D stages, fighting enemies and finding collectibles leading up to a boss fight before moving onto the next stage.

The big difference here is that, you have 3 new playable characters to freely swap between. In the base game, you could play as Shantae. In Pirate Queen’s Quest, you could play as Risky Boots. In Friends to the End, though, you can play as Bolo, Sky, and Rottytops.

Each of these playable characters have different abilities that must be used together to navigate the way this DLC Campaign has changed the base game’s environments. There are a lot of hazards that only one of the three can get past. Sky has the ability to glide after a jump and create temporary platforms for crossing large gaps. Bolo has a Grappling Hook to reach higher areas. Finally, Rotty can throw her head across the stage and teleport the rest of her body to where it lands, bypassing magical barriers and many enemies.

This new aspect is an interesting way to play the game, as it makes you think about a lot of your decisions. You can’t just transform into a harpy and fly over obstacles. Sometimes, you will have to use Sky to make a platform, switch to Rotty, jump on the platform, and throw your head to the next platform in the few seconds you have before Sky’s platform disappears. The abilities definitely make some areas easier to access, but others much, much harder.

And speaking of difficulty, let’s talk about Leveling and Magic Abilities. Gaining gems from enemies and pots will level up each character, making their attacks change in power, speed, and range. It will also increase your magic gauge for special abilities, like Rotty’s healing ability. This also increases the difficulty of the game. While gaining gems increases your experience, getting hit will make you lose gems and, with them, those levels you gained. So, you have to work on learning how to dodge enemies to keep those enhanced stats, which are absolutely crucial to fighting the Final Boss.

But that’s not the only part that’s difficult. I mentioned Rotty’s Healing Ability because Friends to the End doesn’t give you any Food Items to pick up. The only way you can heal is by using Rotty’s Magic Ability or getting rare health pickups from enemies. You can’t increase your Maximum Hearts, either, so once you go through your two heals in a boss fight, you have no way to heal until you finish it. This makes this DLC campaign significantly more difficult than both the base game and Pirate Queen’s Quest.

But, enough on the new features, we need to talk about how much content and what kind of content is in this campaign. You have 6 worlds to travel through across this campaign, built into separated stages to emphasize on the new collectible built into the game required to see the True/Good Ending.

The different way of accessing the stages is interesting, but the problem here is that almost every stage, enemy, and boss were taken from the base game. Even the final boss is just a palette swap of the Final Boss from Pirate Queen’s Quest. Pirate Queen’s Quest had a feeling of a lack of new content, but Friends to the End has an even worse feeling with not even one unique boss battle that wasn’t in the other campaigns.

This was all intentional as well. Even one of the boss fight introductions parodies its own DLC Campaign, mocking themselves for using recycled attack patterns. Although that is very comical, it doesn’t excuse for not even making the final boss have a couple new attacks.

As far as how much content there is, you’ve got 6 worlds to go through, with 48 collectible items to collect for the Good Ending. Considering that is one world less than we saw in Pirate Queen’s Quest, you can imagine it is a little bit shorter. Pirate Queen took me a little over 3 hours to complete with the Good Ending. Friends to the End took me a little less than 3 hours, with making sure I had all 48 collectibles when I cleared the Final Boss. If I hadn’t gone back and kept retrying for those collectibles, it would’ve barely lasted 2 hours, if that. It’s very short.

Presentation

There is one thing that is worth noting for presentation. Nothing has changed in terms of graphics and performance, but the sound has one note-worthy change.

All of the background songs for the stages outside of boss fights have been replaced by various songs picked from the previous games of the series: Shantae for the GBC, Risky’s Revenge for Dsi, and Pirate’s Curse for the Nintendo 3DS. This does provide a little difference in atmosphere when you’re navigating old levels with retro music.